Preview: Galway WFC vs City

Cork City FC Women return to SSE Airtricity Women’s National League Action this weekend, buoyed by a positive Cup win against Bonagee United. Manager Danny Murphy is looking to continue the recent performance run “Very happy with the Cup game, it was important we didn’t break all the hard work we did against Athlone and that we approached the game in the right way. From the warm-up, through the start of the game and the way we saw it out, it was exactly what we wanted, a really professional attitude, the work-rate didn’t drop and protected the clean sheet.”

The clean sheet also welcomed and when prompted on a 40 yard sprint by Chloe Atkinson late on to get back and cover, Murphy sees this as a sign of what the team are implementing “Chloe is young girl coming in but she knows she has to do that because the others are doing that, they’re leading by example, they’re setting that standard that if you want to come up and play with us, you have to do what we all do.”

“The players want to improve, they want to be more competitive and they’ve been brilliant. I only have good things to say about it, I just want to keep it going. I don’t want us to sit back saying we’ve had a couple of good weeks, I want us to consistently perform. If we get it right, we will challenge the top teams. There’s a group of players here who can compete at the other end of the table, we just need to keep going. The players are enjoying it, which is massive for me.”

Two excellent performances in recent weeks means selecting the squad is giving Danny “an even bigger headache this weekend compared to last weekend as we have another few players back in but we’ll pick the team that we feel that will get us a result against Galway. We’re just missing Lauren [Walsh] and Becky this weekend, Kate is carrying a bit of an injury. We have everyone around the squad now, but just a few little things to clear up before we can say we have everyone back 100%.”

Cork City opened the season at home to Galway with a 3-0 loss, down 1-0 at half time, City enjoyed the better of the second half before Galway scored on the break to kill the game off and Danny knows it will be challenging again. “It’s a difficult game, Galway are aggressive, they get a lot of crosses into the box. They put you under pressure and try to play in your half, they win back a lot of possession in midfield. It’s a different challenge but we’ll set up the way we feel will allow us to play to our strengths and if we execute the game plan we believe in, then we think we’ll get a positive result.”

Galway WFC -v- Cork City FC Women, Saturday 16th July, Eamon Deasy Park, 6pm. Live on LOITV.