Athlone Town vs Galway United: FAI Women’s Cup Final Showdown

Athlone’s new dynasty meets Galway’s great ambition. One game, one ticket to the FAI Women’s Cup final.

In only their seventh season as a league club, Athlone Town are chasing a fifth consecutive Cup final and a third FAI Women’s Cup in four years. That sort of dominance used to belong to long-faded names. Now it wears blue and black in the midlands.

Across from them stand Galway United, again in the mix on several fronts, again threatening to turn potential into medals. They have never lifted a major trophy. They have never even walked out for this final. That’s the gap they’re trying to close in 90 minutes.

A competition with ghosts on the honours board

Officially, the FAI Women’s Cup is in its 52nd year. The records begin in 1975, when Limerick beat Civil Service 2-1 at Markets Field. It would be another 36 years before a women’s national league was formally launched, but the Cup was already throwing up stories.

Some of the names on that roll of honour feel almost mythical now. Benfica, for instance – not the Lisbon giants, but a Waterford club who claimed three Women’s FAI Cups. Their last came in 1993, when a 15-year-old Ciara Grant lit up Kilcohan Park, then the home of Waterford football before the RSC era.

Before them, the Suffragettes dominated, a club that wore its politics on its sleeve and its quality on the pitch, winning three Cups in five seasons in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dublin Castle took four in the early years, exerting a different kind of rule over the competition than their Victorian namesake once did over the country.

Athlone now have a chance to stand alongside those old powers, at least statistically, by adding a third Cup in four seasons. They are also hunting a second straight league-and-cup double and currently lead the table, with Shelbourne and Galway United the closest challengers.

Athlone’s rebuild on the fly

That Athlone are still setting the pace at home and in the Cup is remarkable given the churn in their squad.

Kelly Brady, top scorer in the 2025 league campaign and the match-winner in last year’s Cup final, left for Crystal Palace in the off-season and has since moved on to Glasgow City. At the other end, goalkeeper Megan Plaschko retired at the start of this year, handing the No. 1 shirt to Cypriot back-up Maria Matthaiou.

The American influence remains the engine of the side. New Yorker Dana Scheriff, the 2023 golden boot winner, has returned and immediately filled the Brady-shaped void, hammering in 15 league goals in 15 games. Around her, Maddison Gibson and Alexis Strickland have hit form and rhythm.

For captain Hannah Waesch, another of the US contingent, the standards haven’t budged.

"It's hard because we lost some of our key players from last year, obviously with Kelly Brady being a golden boot winner, but also we lost our starting keeper," Waesch told RTÉ Sport.

"So we lost the girl that was getting it done on our offence and the girl that was getting it done on our defence.

"We got a lot of new girls in from clubs outside Ireland and other clubs in the League of Ireland. The standard hasn't dropped in the slightest. I think just because there's a personnel change doesn't necessarily mean that our standards and expectations have."

Waesch arrived from Texas last year, fresh out of college, and almost by accident ended up at the heart of a title-chasing dressing room.

"The agent I was with at the time had two girls at Athlone already and so the window was slowly closing and so I was just like, yeah, let's give Ireland a go. If you've already had two [American] girls at Athlone then why not a third? So it wasn't necessarily on my radar but yeah, happy to be here."

"I feel like Athlone gets a bad rap but I like Athlone. I like how everything's within walking distance so I don't necessarily need to have a car and yeah, all the girls are in town so it's like living with all your best friends."

The adjustment from US college sport to the League of Ireland has been stark.

"It [the League of Ireland] is different, especially coming from the university level [in the US] when you've got every resource that you could possibly think of thrown at you. It's a real professional environment. Like if you are a student athlete, that is your full-time job, whereas over here a lot of the girls are part-time."

"There aren't too many full-time professional players in the League of Ireland is my understanding, and so there's, you know, girls working part-time jobs and then coming to practice late at night."

Yet Athlone keep winning. Keep returning to the sharp end of competitions. Keep setting the bar.

Galway, the one team to crack them

Only one side has beaten Athlone in the league this season. Galway United. And they did it late, and dramatically.

In Terryland in late May, with the game in the balance, Remini Tillotson and Niamh Farrelly struck at the death to hand the westerners a statement victory. It remains Athlone’s sole league loss.

Galway themselves have been almost flawless. Their only league defeat came at the start of August, a narrow 1-0 reverse away to Bohemians. They sit third, a position they have virtually owned in recent years, but crucially they hold games in hand on the teams above them.

Now they stand one match away from a first FAI Women’s Cup final, and midfielder Aoibheann Donnelly is not tiptoeing into the occasion.

"They're the champions but the last time we met we came out on top so we're not going in as the underdogs."

"I think belief is probably a huge thing for us. This year, the good run we had at the start of the year really helped us and we started to get that belief and get that confidence and it just snowballed into the run of games that we had. We were unbeaten until August which is a huge achievement."

Built in the west, ready for a breakthrough

Galway’s squad has a distinctly local core. The club have sprinkled in quality from elsewhere – including American pair Tillotson and Isabella Beletic, while goalkeeper Amanda McQuillan and Farrelly have arrived from Shelbourne – but much of the dressing room hails from the west.

Donnelly, from Clarecastle, only joined midway through the 2025 season. She walked into a project already gathering speed.

"I only signed mid-season last year but it's been a whole process, like it's been years in the making. They've been building something over the last number of years, I think since Phil [Trill] has come in."

"I think this year we're really close to where the club wants to be. We did well last season but there was probably a few results that we just couldn't get over the line and we're hoping to put that right this year."

Athlone are chasing history, trying to nail down their status alongside the great names etched into the Cup’s past. Galway are trying to write their first line.

Only one of them will get to do it under the lights on Cup final day.