Waterford striker Coughlan makes history with Player of the Month award

POTM Ronan Coughlan.

WATERFORD FC STRIKER Ronan Coughlan has been named the SSE Airtricity/Soccer Writers Ireland Player of the Month for November.

He becomes the only First Division player in the 52-year history of the award to win Player of the Month twice in one season, having previously landed the April accolade.

Coughlan’s campaign was stellar: the 27-year-old was a central figure as the Blues secured promotion back to the Premier Division after a two-year absence.

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He scored a decisive penalty in the promotion/relegation play-off against Cork City at Tallaght Stadium, bringing his 2023 tally to an extraordinary 37 goals in league and club action.

This eye-watering haul set a new goalscoring record for the second tier — surpassing Andy Myler’s 29 in 2001 — and equalled the all-time League of Ireland mark, set by Cork’s Jimmy Turnbull in 1936.

In a vote of SWI members, Coughlan pipped St Patrick’s Athletic’s Jamie Lennon — Man of the Match in the FAI Cup final victory — to the prize, with his Saints team-mate Sam Curtis finishing third.

“It’s a great achievement for myself to be the first player from the First Division to win the award twice in one season,” Coughlan said. “It’s special when you when it in any month but to win the last one is extra special with the month that I had personally.

SSE Airtricity / YouTube

“It was a seriously successful season for myself, as an individual. Ultimately, that’s all well and good but you want to win something and achieve something at whatever club you go to. That was my main objective when I came to the club, to get the promotion.

“We didn’t do it the easy way. When you watch Galway, you see that they’ve won the league, they’ve finished, I wished we had done it that way. We came through the playoffs – it’s not an easy way to do it by any means.”

Coughlan — an FAI Cup winner with St Pat’s in 2021 and a “real student of the game,” having just completed his Uefa B License — is just the second Waterford player to earn two Player of the Month awards in one season. Alfie Hale achieved the feat 50 years ago.

St Pat’s captain Joe Redmond, Coughlan’s Waterford teammate Connor Parsons and Dylan Watts of Premier Division champions Shamrock Rovers also featured on the shortlist alongside the Limerick man.