Mark Salmon hopes the experience Longford Town have brought into their squad will serve them well in this year’s SSE Airtricity Premier Division.
Town are back in the top-flight for the first time since 2007 and have brought in some well-known faces, including Mark Rossiter and Conor Powell, to complement the experience of Stephen Rice and Pat Sullivan.
The Longford captain told RTÉ Sport: “Our whole back four has won nearly everything there is to win in the league. We had a great squad last year. Tony has kept the bulk of that and added another one or two. Mark Rossiter and Conor Powell have come in. We'll be looking forward to the start now.
“There are lads in the team that people will know from playing in the Premier Division. We have a good mix of lads that haven't played there yet. Davy O'Sullivan, who has scored an awful lot of goals at Longford in a short period of time, he and Gary Shaw have been brilliant up front together. It will be interesting. I'm sure they will be looking forward to getting going in the Premier.
“As a group I think we will do alright, hopefully. We are looking to get off to the best start possible. It's not going to be easy. We have Dundalk and Rovers in our first two games but you are going to have to play them at some stage. We will just be looking to get points on the board as soon as possible.”
Salmon said that the return of Premier Division football to Longford has the county “buzzing” and expects to be see renewed interest in the club.
The skipper is hoping to avoid the drop back to Division 1 and remains optimistic for Longford's prospects of survival.
“The town is buzzing down there. It's been seven years out of the Premier and I think everyone is looking forward to getting going on Friday.
“Towards last year we were getting crowds back. There was a couple of thousand at the games which was great. There will be bigger crowds when Rovers and Pat's are in town compared to Finn Harps, no disrespect to them. Fans will come out for bigger games so we are hoping to see a few more faces.
“We have kept the momentum going. This year is going to be a little different to last year. We were expected to win most games last year. It'll be different this year. But we have a good group there.”
