Fortune Favours The Brave

📷 KBD Photos

It’s about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Mallow to Athlone, passing through such illustrious placenames as Borris-in-Ossory, Cloghan and Ferbane. There really is only so far LOI Central and Crime Junkies can take you and then, it starts. The mind drifts and begin’s to ponder life’s most serious questions, what if Cork City was a properly run football club? What if the FAI was a competent organisation? What if the Shamrocks had given Steph Zambra the job six months ago, and most importantly what if Athlone lose tonight?

The first three will always remain unanswered but thankfully it only took Athlone and Izzy Groves in particular, fourteen minutes to assure every one of the nineteen hundred souls in attendance that this was not a game Athlone were going to lose. The worry coming into the game had been about the fitness of the Athlone front three. Gibson, Brady and Molloy are key to everything this side do as an attacking force and thankfully all three were named in the starting eleven.

Roisin Molloy would maraud up and down the right all night, while on the opposite flank, Madison Gibson would skip and dance past whoever stood between her and the endline, all while having a football glued to her boot. Kelly Brady didn’t get on the scoresheet but her ability to occupy the two centre backs meant they could never offer help or support to the two full backs, who will both require hours of therapy to ensure they don’t wake in the middle of night screaming about Molloy and Gibson running at them.

Izzy Groves opened the scoring in the 14th minute, after Molloy had done brilliantly on the right and then had found the perfect pull back to allow Groves to lift the ball over Chamberlain in the Cardiff goal. Prior to that, Athlone had come out of the traps quick and had set about a Cardiff side still in preseason. The first eight minutes was sustained Athlone pressure, with a couple of balls whipped across the box that Kelly Brady just failed to get a touch on. Chamberlain flapped at a couple of crosses and Roisin Molloy put a free kick on target but it failed to trouble the Cardiff keeper.

Gibson and Molloy continued to do absolute wreck down the flanks to the point where the only way they could be slowed down was to kick them, hard and often. The Norwegian ref correctly waved away Athlone penalty claims after Groves went down in the 27th minute and a couple of minutes later, Sarah Rice just failed to get her head on another Roisin Molloy cross. From the subsequent corner Izzy Groves should have scored again but this time she fired her effort over the bar from eight yards while completely unmarked.

Athlone doubled their lead on forty minutes and this time it was Molloy who was on the end of a Gibson ball across the area, a touch with her knee then allowed her to finish under the despairing dive of Chamberlain. If the game wasn’t finished at two nil then it was definitely finished three mins later when Molloy again popped up in the right place at the right time to nod home a brilliant Shaunagh Brennan cross, a goal which showed all that is good about Athlone’s attacking play. A free kick taking quickly to Gibson, who in turn played a lovely ball to Kelly Brady following a run that every striker should make but not all do, with her first touch she laid it wide to Brennan who found Molloy, as she had come off her wing to nod home in the centre of the six-yard box. A brilliant piece of football that deserved the resulting goal.

That sent Athlone in with a three nil lead and the only real question was how many they would get in the second half. The answer was only one, but it was scored by a player that right now must be the best in the league. When Athlone lost the brilliant Lawrie Ryan, we all wondered how they would cope without the best No6 in the league? Not only have they coped but somehow, they have found someone better (sorry Lawrie). Have you ever thought about the intelligence possessed by a physicist, the poise and dexterity exemplified by a ballerina, or the general comfort and feeling of well being that our fantastic medical hero's bring to our lives?

Hannah Waesch has also those wrapped into one, the intelligence in knowing what needs to be done and when, the poise and dexterity to get around the pitch with what appears to be minimum effort and then she gives you that general feeling of comfort, knowing that your life is now better for having seen her play. When she rattled in the fourth in the 49th minute, via the inside of the post, the game was well and truly over.

The rest played out as it should have, Athlone easing off with their eye on tougher tests ahead on Saturday, a couple of yellow cards and an injury scare for Molloy was all that really remained of the contest.

Colin Fortune was very clear afterwards that he wants Athlone to impose their game on their opponents on Saturday, in the same manner that they did so last night. That in turn led to the pondering of different questions on the way home.

Why the **** didn’t I just go via the motorway and what if Athlone win on Saturday?