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

In only their seventh season as a league club, Athlone Town are already chasing a place among the grandees of the FAI Women’s Cup. Four finals in a row behind them, they now stand one win from a fifth straight appearance and a shot at a third trophy in four years.

Blocking the road are Galway United, a side that keeps knocking on the door of silverware on several fronts but has yet to feel the weight of a major cup in their hands. One of these stories bends towards consolidation of power. The other, towards a breakthrough.

Both collide this weekend.

A competition built on colourful pioneers

The FAI Women’s Cup is officially in its 52nd year, a competition that predates the women’s national league by 36 seasons. The early roll of honour reads like a scrapbook of Irish football eccentricity.

Limerick took the first title in 1975, beating Civil Service 2-1 at Markets Field. Then came the trailblazers with names that still jump off the page.

Benfica – not Lisbon’s European aristocrats but a Waterford club – lifted the trophy three times, the last of those in 1993 when a 15-year-old Ciara Grant stole the show in a Kilcohan Park final against College Corinthians of Douglas, Cork.

Before that, the Suffragettes dominated the late 1970s and early 1980s, claiming three Cups in five seasons while nodding to the Pankhursts every time they walked out. Dublin Castle, true to their name, ruled the early years with four titles, echoing the power they once held over the country in an entirely different context.

Athlone now stand on the brink of joining that old guard. One more Cup win would pull them level on three with those faded giants. They are also hunting back-to-back doubles, sitting top of the league with Shelbourne and Galway United in closest pursuit.

Athlone rebuild on the fly – without dropping a gear

That Athlone are still setting the pace at home and in the Cup is remarkable when you strip back the squad list. The champions have not been standing still; they’ve been rebuilding at speed.

Kelly Brady, top scorer in the 2025 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. Goalkeeper Megan Plaschko retired at the start of the year, leaving Cypriot understudy Maria Matthaiou to step into the No. 1 jersey.

The American core, though, still drives this team.

Golden boot winner in 2023, New Yorker Dana Scheriff has returned and filled the Brady-sized hole with ruthless efficiency: 15 league goals in 15 games. Maddison Gibson and Alexis Strickland have also hit form, stretching defences and keeping Athlone’s attack as sharp as ever.

At the heart of it all is captain Hannah Waesch, another American, who insists the standards have not shifted an inch.

“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 tells 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’s own route to the midlands underlines just how quickly Athlone’s project has taken shape.

From Texas to the Shannon – and a surprise landing spot

The Texan arrived last year straight out of college, not to one of the traditional Dublin powerhouses but to a town many outsiders barely consider as a football destination.

“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,” she says.

“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 move has also given her a stark contrast between the US college machine and the semi-professional reality of the League of Ireland.

“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 this part-time core has kept Athlone on top of the table and in the hunt for another Cup. And the one team to crack them this season? Galway United.

Galway’s statement win – and a belief that stuck

Back in late May in Terryland, Galway handed Athlone their only league defeat of the season. It came late, and it hurt.

Goals from American Remini Tillotson and Republic of Ireland international Niamh Farrelly turned the game on its head at the death, a comeback that still colours the mood in the west.

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

Now they stand one game from their first-ever FAI Women’s Cup final. It’s new territory, but not one that intimidates midfielder Aoibheann Donnelly.

“They’re the champions but the last time we met we came out on top so we’re not going in as the underdogs,” she says.

“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.”

That belief is built on a core that feels distinctly western.

A western spine with a growing edge

Galway’s squad leans heavily on local talent, with a sprinkling of external quality rather than an overhaul. Tillotson and fellow American Isabella Beletic add a different flavour, while Farrelly and goalkeeper Amanda McQuillan have arrived from Shelbourne to lift the standard again.

The rest of the group is largely drawn from the western half of the country, a regional identity that has grown alongside the club’s ambitions.

Donnelly, from Clarecastle, only joined midway through the 2025 season, but she walked into a project already building serious 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,” she says.

“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.”

That line could easily double as the mission statement for this semi-final. Athlone know how to get over the line. Galway are desperate to prove they finally can.

One club is chasing a place in the history books alongside Suffragettes, Benfica and Dublin Castle. The other is trying to write its name on the Cup for the first time.

Only one gets to walk into the final.