WNL Preview: Peamount vs City

Cork City FC Women’s team went down 5-1 to Wexford Youths last weekend, but it’s the opening twenty minutes that created an uphill battle that proved insurmountable for City last weekend. Irish International Ellen Molloy grabbing a hat-trick in the opening 18 minutes of the game, as Wexford Youths started like a team keen to exorcise the loss in their previous game away to Peamount United.

“We started poorly, no point saying otherwise” began Paul Farrell as he looked back on the game “if anything, we showed them too much respect and stood off them a little too much. The funny thing was that for the remainder of the half we kicked into gear and put in a great shift. Becky popped up with a good goal and there was a period where we thought we could get back to 3-2, which I don’t think anyone could have denied we deserved at that stage, but unfortunately Kylie Murphy scores and we go in 4-1 down at half-time and its effectively game over.”

The second half was more even, but while City pushed hard, the quality of the Wexford team meant that it was too little, too late. “When you’re really pushing like that, you do run the risk of leaving gaps and making mistakes and they did pick us off for the fifth” said Farrell “but that’s a different scenario to the opening twenty minutes. In the end we were always chasing.”

The task doesn’t get any easier with the trip to Peamount this weekend, but the team has shown repeatedly that they can deliver periods of good play, even against the strongest teams but Farrell wants to try and get to a situation where City aren’t chasing. “We need to sit down and review how we’re building up play and playing up. We’ve conceded too many goals, but we’re not conceding ‘worldies’ each week, a lot of the goals are coming from situations we’re putting ourselves in and we all need to look at that. We have to ensure that games aren’t out of sight to the point we’re already chasing after twenty minutes or in the first half.”

There are no new injury worries heading into the weekend with Natalie O’Brien and Lauren Walsh both available after missing the trip to Wexford.