Mervue United and Salthill Devon take to the road

Date Published: 19-Aug-2010

STEPHEN GLENNON

BOTH Salthill Devon and Mervue United are on the road this weekend, with Salthill making the long trip to Ballybofey for a First Division clash with Finn Harps this evening, Friday, (8pm) and Mervue facing Athlone Town away on Saturday (7:30pm).

Although Finn Harps have recorded a double win over Salthill already this season – and are favourites to do so again this evening – Devon have caused the northerners problems.Indeed, it took two second half goals from Finn Harps to secure the points in their first meeting of the season, while just the one goal separated the two when they faced each other in Drom back in May.

Given that Salthill have shown some improvement as the season has progressed, they will feel confident that they can cause an upset in Donegal this evening. “We did lose 2-0 up there, but they needed two very late goals to win that game,” recalls Devon Head Coach Emlyn Long.“

No doubt, it (Ballybofey) is a difficult place to go and get a result, very hard, but we are going well ourselves at the moment. We have had two good results back-to-back and that is the time we have done that all season. So, we are reasonably confident.

”Indeed, Long believes that Salthill should have claimed all three points against Athlone Town last Saturday, having taken a deserved lead through Daryl Horgan. However, a goal from Athlone’s half-time substitute Andy Haran a minute after the break was to deny Devon what would have been just their third three-pointer of the league.

“We had two goals disallowed for off-side and I looked at them afterwards and I didn’t think they were. So, from that respect, we were disappointed with the result. We also conceded a goal straight after half-time, and besides that they had few other scoring chances. The three points were definitely there for us.”