WNL Preview: City vs Galway

Cork City welcome Galway WFC to Turners Cross on Saturday for a Women’s National League game at our usual 5.00pm kick-off time. A big attendance is expected with a number of schoolgirls clubs from around Cork and Munster taking up the chance to attend the game.

It’s been a strange preparation with the announcement by Galway WFC this week that the club will not enter the WNL next season. While there are hints that Galway United may step it, players and staff face an uncertain period, something City manager Danny Murphy can understand.

They’re a great club and you just want players and staff looked after. I’ve been there as a player at Cork City when there was uncertainty around the club, when you’re not sure where you might be next season. Sometimes as a player in that situation, just to get on a pitch and play the games can be a good release, because that’s where you can have control.

I’m sure they’ll be thinking that they have a limited number of games left this season and they’re going to want to show what they can do, put themselves in contention for new clubs - looking to impress, making sure other people are aware of them and thinking of them as options.

For us, it’s another team, and another game and we focus on our game plans and our preparation. We have to do our jobs and prepare properly, get our mindset right and look to win the game. We want to bounce back from the Wexford loss. We were disappointed to lose like that having played well in the first half. The two penalties came at crucial parts of the game.

I wouldn’t say we were on top in the first half but we were very well organised, we forced them into areas where we could win the ball back and then we counterattacked very well. I obviously don’t agree with the first penalty decision, but it’s not something we can control. We were disappointed to go in 1-1 at half time. We didn’t really start the second half well, we were under a little pressure but we were well in the game and causing them problems, then the second penalty, all I’ll say is I didn’t agree with that one either, it just flattened us.

We’re chasing the game then and wanted to bring on fresh legs, but in hindsight maybe we should have held a little and tried to get back some of the control we had because even though it felt the right decision at the time, did we need to make those changes at that time of the game?

We want to pick ourselves up and go again versus Galway. We’ve had to prepare without Eva and Chloe as they’re away with the Irish 19s and everyone knows that Eva in particular is a huge part of our game plan. But we’ve stayed in contact, she’s really focused and we’ve spoken about little things we want to do at the weekend. We know we’ve been performing well, but we want to start getting those points on the board too.