Athlone Town required a last gasp Philly Gorman goal to earn a point in a 2-2 draw from last Friday’s SSE Airtricity League First Division clash with Cabinteely at Lissywoolen.
The Midlanders levelled twice during the contest courtesy of the prolific Gorman as Eddie Wallace’s side avoided another costly defeat.
Now six points behind table toppers Finn Harps, Athlone will be hoping to register a positive result when Waterford United visit Lissywollen tomorrow (Friday ).
Waterford only claimed six points in the opening series of fixtures, but Athlone player/coach Aidan felt the Midlanders were ‘disappointing’ against Cabinteely. “It was a disappointing performance,” Collins admitted in a post-match radio interview. “We will take the draw, but I don’t think we deserved it.
“After the first goal we responded well to get an equaliser straight away. We had chances to go ahead just after half-time, we didn’t take them. We didn’t perform after that so we will take the draw.
“That is not acceptable to be honest. You can have no aspirations of going up playing like that. We need to improve 100 per cent. We had a couple of chances; it might have been a different game, but we are going to have to step it up.
“Goalscorer Gorman, who took his seasonal account to four, was encouraged by the fact that Athlone rescued a share of the spoils.“We were very disappointed with our performance - it was a game we would probably be expected to win, but you have to take positives out of it,” Gorman said.
“To get a last-minute goal we salvaged something. We are one of the favourites in the league; teams are going to come here to do that. We have to work out ways of breaking them down.
“We have kept a good core of experienced lads who have been around. We have some young fellas in, we are happy with how good they are. We’d be hoping that they will progress this season. In games they have shown their talent and what they can bring to the team. It is up to the core of experienced players to help bring them along.”
