IT was a break he didn’t want in the first place, so Cork City women’s manager Danny Murphy will be glad it’s finally over as his side travel to Athlone Town for their Women’s National League clash tomorrow evening.

It won’t be an early start but it will be a late finish for City with their game kicking off at 7pm — as ever it will be available to watch live and for free on LOI TV — but as long as Murphy and co are travelling back to Cork with a good result after a good performance, they won’t mind too much.

Getting that good result will be far from easy as Athlone have been one of the surprise packages in the league so far.

They are joint third in the table with none other than a highly experienced and talented Peamount United side.

After 14 games, they have eight wins, two draws, and just four losses, the same as Peamount, and they are just three points adrift of FAI Cup winners Wexford Youths in second.

One of those eight league wins came at Turner’s Cross at the beginning of May and it was quite a convincing victory; Athlone won 4-1 with City’s effort coming from a powerful Aoife Cronin just past the hour when the game was all but over.

But City will feel like they are a different team now as they have a new general in charge.

They have even tasted victory more recently than their opponents as their last outing before this three-week interval was a hard-earned 2-1 triumph over Munster rivals Treaty United while Athlone were held to a 0-0 draw by Galway.

But they know they will have to put in similar work-rate if they are to take anything from their trip to the Midlands.

MOMENTUM

In other news, City’s home game in the FAI Cup against Bonagee United has been fixed for Sunday week (2pm).

Bonagee were on Leeside recently and they were beaten 4-1 by Cork Women’s and Schoolgirls Soccer League Senior Premier Division leaders Douglas Hall in the intermediate cup semi-final.

Whatever happens to City in Athlone, they will have a great opportunity to build some positive momentum the following weekend which Murphy feels was disrupted by the mid-season break.

It would be a huge boost to reach the national cup quarter-final.

Finally, the club also congratulated and wished the best of luck to six members of their U17 academy squad who have been called up for the Republic of Ireland’s U17 assessments.

Fiana Bradley, Niamh Cotter, Grace Flanagan, Heidi Mackin, Ailbhe O’Donovan, and Kiera Sena have been called up to the training days which will take place on July 7 and 13.