Reigning SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division champions Athlone Town have every chance of getting past Glasgow City in their Europa Cup qualifying tie later this month, according to Shelbourne midfielder Rachel Graham.
The Midlanders were unable to progress from the second qualifying round of the Champions League after losing to Iceland's Breidablik in the Dutch city of Enschede last Wednesday.
But they bounced back three days later to beat Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) 2-0 in their third-place play-off at the same venue to ensure that they would be involved in the first qualifying round of the inaugural Women's Europa Cup - UEFA's new secondary club competition.
On Sunday, it was confirmed that their opponents will be Glasgow City, who have Irish internationals Emily Whelan and Erin McLaughlin on their books, with the first leg on the week of 10/11 September and the return match the following week.
While Glasgow were once utterly dominant in the Scottish league, they have not been quite as successful domestically in the last couple of years.
And speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, former Republic of Ireland international Graham, who plays for Athlone's title rivals Shelbourne, said Colin Fortune's side cannot be counted out in their tie later this month.
"To be honest, I do give (Athlone) a good chance. I think they've got a good draw again," she said.
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"When you think of Glasgow City, you think of that really dominant Scottish team. I think they won the league ten years in a row or something like that and at once stage were getting to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
"But I don't think they're as strong as they would have been when they were reaching those kind of achievements.
"They've lost a couple of players. Their captain (Jo Love) has gone. She had nearly 300 appearances for them and another player Megan Foley left - she has over 200 appearances for them - so they have lost a lot of experience.
"They started their league well this year. They have two wins out of two games but I don't think they're going to be anything that Athlone should be really fearful of.
"We played them a couple of years ago at Shelbourne and they did beat us but again they wouldn't be as strong as they would have been then, and we put it up to them I would say.
"It was probably around that 65-70 minute mark where we saw the difference in fitness levels and we started to drop off in our performance. They just got better as the game went on.
"So that's the one side of it where (Athlone) maybe might struggle against them but in terms of talent and technical ability, I don't see Glasgow being anything that Athlone can't really deal with it."
Watch Republic of Ireland v Hungary in World Cup qualifying on Saturday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to live radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
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