WNL Preview: City vs Sligo Rovers

Cork City FC Women welcome Sligo Rovers Women to Turners Cross this Saturday at 5pm for the third meeting of the teams in this season’s SSE Airtricity Women’s National League. It’s been two narrow wins for Sligo in the first two games between the sides, which is a testament to the strength of the Sligo side in their inaugural WNL Season.

Sligo lie one place, and ten points, above City in the table but Danny Murphy sees both sides on a similar trajectory this season as results and performances for both sides have been up and down. “Sligo is a strange one for us to prepare for” Murphy opened “it’s difficult to judge them on video analysis because they’re a different team from the start of the season and I think we are too. So, this weekend we’re going to approach it all about us, how we can play, things we can do, and I think if we play the same way we did against Athlone then we’ll be successful.”

While back to back Cup and League games against Athlone resulted in back to back losses, Murphy goes into this weekend’s game confident that his team are capable of gaining ground on the Bit O’ Red. “When I watch back from last weekend, in my opinion we made Athlone look like they weren’t top of the table, we played really well but then thing is they got four chances and scored two of them. We created five or six chances but we didn’t make the keeper work.”

“I might be more worried if we weren’t creating opportunities, but I feel the margins are fine, we even we just need a slice of luck. We’re not a million miles away, it’s just judging the weight of a pass better to put someone through, but those small little details are what take you from the bottom of the table and move you towards the top.”

Murphy has close to a full squad to pick from for the first time in a couple of months with just Lauren Singleton a doubt through illness. “There’s nothing too serious otherwise this weekend” Murphy states, “the players have a few little knocks and bruises but that comes from the effort they’re putting in, putting their bodies on the line, making tackles and blocks, for me they’re part and parcel of the game and we’ll get through that.”