Former hurdler Gillian Keenan believes last season's surprise packet Athlone Town can leap into title contention after a slow start to this season.
The midlanders came close to winning the double but lost out on the League crown to Shelbourne by two points and were also beaten by the Reds in the FAI Women's Cup final.
Athlone lost three of their best performers in Emily Corbet - the League's player of the year last term - Jess Hennessy and Melissa O'Kane in the close season, and are currently in sixth place, 12 points adrift of leaders Peamount United ahead of tomorrow's clash of the sides at PRL Park.
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"I've no doubt we can work up towards the top again," said winger Keenan, who was with the Peas between August 2018 and the end of 2019.
"We still have the second half of the season to come, we had plenty of new players coming in at the start of the campaign and it takes time to gel, to get to know how new players play, but that's happening now.
"We've been performing well, we just haven't got the results we deserved. It's just the final product we've been lacking.
"It's about taking points off the teams ahead of us and we can do that. I believe we can do as well as we did last year."
Keenan joined the club ahead of last season from Treaty United and while last year was only lacking silverware, this time around has presented more difficulty on a personal level.
After recovering from an ankle and achilles injury that originated just before the Cup final, the problem then recurred a fortnight into pre-season training and she was playing catch-up.
"It set me back massively," the Laois woman said. "But hopefully things are looking up from a personal and club point of view.
"Potentially it's the case that teams didn't know how good we were last season but now they know what to expect when they play us.
"But we have a good team and hopefully we can show that against Peamount - it would be nice to take points off them and go on the kind of winning run that we produced last year."
Keenan was a strong 100m hurdler when she was younger - when she was 15, she finished second in the All-Ireland indoors in her age grade.
Her father, David, runs the Emo Rath athletics club and so it was in the genes but football always came first.
"I competed in Leinsters and All-Irelands, Athletics was secondary for me," she said. "I think my dad always kind of knew that, but I have two siblings who do athletics so he doesn't mind!
Keenan's sprinting prowess is put to effective use on the pitch. "I feel like it has helped me the whole way up," she acknowledged. "But I probably need to work on my endurance fitness."
She will have most of the summer to do so, having just finished her final accounting and finance exams after four years in UL.
"My full time focus is on football for now," Keenan said.
"I'm waiting on my exam results in August and, beyond that, I haven't made any decisions on my future. There will be time to sit down and figure out what I want to do."
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