First Division play-off preview: Waterford and Cobh eye final after positive starts

Waterford FC and Cobh Ramblers will look to seal a place in the First Division play-off final when they host second leg matches against Athlone Town and Wexford FC today.

Tuesday night saw two evenly-contested first legs and the incentive remains for all four teams going into the second legs.

The league's leading scorers Ronan Coughlan and Frantz Pierrot both found the net in Athlone Town Stadium as the home side and Blues played out a 1-1 draw.

The visitors felt aggrieved not to be awarded two penalties after the goals went in, giving Town hope in this second leg.

Waterford will be fancied to progress with a big RSC crowd behind them this afternoon.

They’ve also had the better of the regular league games. However, Athlone did claim an away win in the last meeting.

Manager Keith Long said: "We were disappointed to draw the game [on Tuesday], I think we deserved to come away with the win. We dominated lots of the ball, Ronan [Coughlan] almost got a good second goal and some decisions didn’t go our way in the end too with a couple of penalty shouts.

"Elements of the game were really good, I was really pleased with some of the performances and hopefully we can show that spirit again on Saturday.

"We had brilliant support in Athlone on Tuesday night, fans travelling up in their numbers to get behind the team and hopefully we’ll get a big crowd on Saturday too.

"We know Athlone are a very dangerous side with lots of talented individuals and are a good hard-working team, so we know we need to earn the right to progress into the final of the play off. We’ve been working hard and we’ll be ready for Saturday."

Kick-off is 3pm.

Elsewhere Cobh Ramblers will host their biggest game in recent memory at St Colman’s Park as they look to finish