Athlone Town Aims for Fifth FAI Women's Cup Final Against Galway United

In only their seventh season as a league club, Athlone Town stand on the brink of another piece of history. Four FAI Women's Cup finals in a row already banked, they are now one step from a fifth successive showpiece – and a third Cup in four seasons.

Blocking the road are Galway United, a side that has spent the last few years nudging at the door of the domestic elite without yet smashing it down. They are in the hunt on several fronts, competitive every year, but still waiting for that first major trophy to prove it.

A competition with ghosts and giants

The FAI Women's Cup is officially in its 52nd year. The archives start in 1975, when Limerick beat Civil Service 2-1 at Markets Field to claim the inaugural title – 36 years before an official women's national league finally arrived.

The roll of honour reads like a tour of a vanished landscape.

There was Benfica – not Lisbon’s European aristocrats, but a Waterford club who lifted the Cup three times. Their last triumph came in 1993, a final at Kilcohan Park where a 15-year-old Ciara Grant stole the show as they swept aside College Corinthians from Douglas in Cork.

Before them, the Suffragettes blazed a trail, their very name a nod to the Pankhursts. They dominated the late 1970s and early 1980s, three Cups in five seasons and a statement about who ran the women’s game back then.

Dublin Castle, fittingly, ruled the early years. Four Cups, a mini-empire of their own to mirror the building’s history over the city and the country.

Now Athlone Town can move alongside those faded powers. Victory this year would bring a third FAI Cup in four campaigns, and with it a chance to complete back-to-back doubles. They lead the league, with Shelbourne and Galway United hanging onto their coattails.

Athlone’s American engine keeps humming

That Athlone have stayed at that level is striking given how much the dressing room has changed.

Kelly Brady, top scorer in 2025 and the match-winner in last year’s Cup final, left for Crystal Palace and has since moved on to Glasgow City. Goalkeeper Megan Plaschko retired at the start of the year, her Cypriot understudy Maria Matthaiou stepping up to claim the No. 1 shirt.

The American influence, though, still drives the club.

New Yorker Dana Scheriff, golden boot winner in 2023, has returned and barely missed a beat: 15 league goals in 15 games, a ready-made answer to Brady’s departure. Maddison Gibson and Alexis Strickland have also hit form at the right time.

For captain Hannah Waesch, another of the US contingent, the standards have not shifted.

"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," she 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, from Texas, arrived last year straight out of college. Athlone wasn’t some long-held dream; it was one of the few doors that actually opened.

"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."

She has grown fond of a town that often gets dismissed.

"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 contrast with the American college system still surprises her.

"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."

Galway’s belief, and a sting in the tail

If Athlone are the reigning force, Galway United are the side that refuse to go away.

They handed Athlone their only league defeat of the season back in late May, a dramatic finish in Terryland where late goals from Remini Tillotson and Niamh Farrelly turned the game on its head and snatched it at the death.

Galway themselves have tasted defeat just once in the league, a 1-0 loss away to Bohemians at the start of August. They sit third, a position that has become familiar in recent years, but crucially with games in hand on the teams above.

Now they stand one game from a first-ever FAI Women's Cup final. For Aoibheann Donnelly, the message is clear: they no longer see themselves as plucky outsiders.

"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."

Galway’s squad leans heavily on local talent from the west, sprinkled with a few key additions. Americans Tillotson and Isabella Beletic add bite, while goalkeeper Amanda McQuillan and Farrelly have arrived from Shelbourne to deepen the core.

Donnelly, from Clarecastle, only signed midway through the 2025 season, stepping into a project that had already been gathering momentum.

"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."

So it comes to this: Athlone, chasing dynastic status and another double, against a Galway side convinced their moment is finally arriving. One club trying to join the old giants on the honours list. Another desperate to make sure a new name is etched there instead.