Soccer Wrap-Up with Mike Rafferty

Renmore were promoted to the Premier Division last May after spending some years in Division 1, and as soon as the new season started they were everyone’s favourites to make an immediate return to where they came from.

However, a club celebrating the 50th anniversary of their foundation certainly have pride in abundance and such a scenario was not in their thought process.

Mind you they quickly got a rude awakening about what life is like in the top-flight with a 5-0 hammering by Athenry in their first game back. However, it wasn’t a defeat that defined them, because in their next outing they came from behind to shock the defending champions Salthill Devon 2-1 as Andrin Kraja and Sam Omokua found the net for the home side.

Since then, their season has gone one way and then the other. In the seven games that followed the big win, they only picked up one point, but remarkably in the last six games they have picked up three wins and suffered just a single loss.

Just hovering above the relegation zone – which is currently populated by Corrib Celtic and West United – they have picked up two valuable draws in their most recent outings and it is a tribute to the people involved in the club that they are getting such results.

On Sunday last they had nine players missing through injury and suspension and had just 11 players available. Manager Stuart Donoghue upgraded his title to player/manager as he had to take his boots out of cold storage as he lined out in a match for the first time in a many years, and he led the attack in a one-man front line.

He wasn’t the elder statesman either, as Colie Ridge was another who returned in an emergency roll as a left-full and displayed all the class and ability that he did decades ago.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.