Limerick 37 0 - 0 Athlone Town
Friday 20th June 2008Defences dominated as Limerick and bottom of the table Athlone Town played out a goalless draw at Jackman Park on a week that saw Limerick sign no less than 11 new players.
Limerick dominated the play but could not find a way through the Athlone Town defence, with no less than 5 debutants starting for Limerick on the night there were some bright performances in the middle of the Park from Stephen Goggin and Jason Hughes and indeed all the young debutants performed well.
Davy Byrne had Athlone's only real chance of the game for the visitors on the half hour, but lobbed well over from inside the box.
Limerick who were missing eight first team regulars, went close after the interval via Brian Cleary, who had a corner cleared off the line, Ross Cosgrave and Stephen Goggin who both had close range efforts saved by Ciaran Kelly. Gary Sheehan also had an effort that went just over from close range.
Cosgrave went close again late on, but was again denied by Kelly who dived low to his right to pull off another fine save after some great work from Hughes on the left.
But the most controversial decision of the night came with only 5 mins left in the game, when Grant who was only on the park a few minutes was taken down in the box, when just about to fire home. The referee saw fit to book Grant for allowing himself to have the legs kicked off him in the Athlone box. It's a strange old game.
Limerick 37: Ryan, White, Cleary, Danaher, O'Brien, Goggin, Hughes, Fogarty, Walsh (Cosgrove), Sheehan, Ryan