A week can certainly be a long time in the Airtricity League as Mervue United proved registering two wins on the bounce to edge seven points clear of SD Galway.
The improvement in Mervue's form with wins over Athlone Town and Wexford Youths means that they can look forward to Saturday's Fahy Field encounter against Waterford United with confidence.
Teenager Conor Gleeson has impressed between the sticks behind a defence featuring Martin Conneely and Mike Elwood, while further up the park Tom King, Alan Murphy, Jason Molloy, and Pat Hoban are contributing handsomely.
Molloy and Hoban are talented, attacking, footballers who have been instrumental in securing successive victories for Johnny Glynn's young team. Both Molloy and Hoban rattled the net at Ferrycarrig Park last Friday and Mervue will be hoping that they can make a similar impact when Waterford visit the west at the weekend.
As the season has progressed Waterford have made significant strides and are now very much involved in the promotion race. Trailing table toppers Limerick by six, and second placed Longford by three, the stakes are piled high for Waterford, who know that a tricky tussle awaits with Mervue.
Still the Waterford squad is flecked with experience with Packie Holden, John Frost, Gary Dempsey, Willie John Kiely, and Peter White, while Seamus Long, Paul Carey, and Peter Keegan are decent players too. This fixture will examine Mervue's resources and will give an indication of how much the recent victories have brought them on.
On Friday evening Mervue will also be interested in how their cross town rivals, SD Galway, fare in Ballybofey.
Finn Harps have fared reasonably well in some games in the current campaign especially just before the mid season break when they trounced SD Galway at Terryland Park. That was a serious blow to SD Galway, who need to narrow the gap on Mervue quickly.
Promotion chasing Longford Town had no problems dealing with SD Galway last Friday as a solid opening period display was sufficient to earn the full complement of spoils. After the restart SD Galway were a bit more competitive with Eugene Greaney, Brian Geraghty, Paddy Quinlan, Brian Gaffney, Mixie Harty, Timmy Molloy, and Enda Curran battling honestly without ever truly troubling the midlanders.
Now SD Galway face an awkward Friday night away trip to Donegal completely aware that only one triumph has been posted from 19 matches. That is a worrying statistic and SD Galway need to start eking out positive results, but it will not be easy in the northwest.
