WPD Preview: City vs Sligo Rovers

It’s back to Turner’s Cross this weekend in what Cork City will hope will be a bumper crowd as Sligo Rovers are the visitors for the 5pm kick-off in this weekend’s SSE Airtricity Women’s Premier Division game. Rovers are the only team in the Women’s National League yet to register a point after the eight rounds of games, but they have been beaten by just a single goal on four occasions this season. City Manager Danny Murphy knows that both teams will be aiming to get their first win on the board this weekend. “Sligo are a decent side, they’re behind us in the table but they’ve not conceded a lot of goals and they’ve scored more than we have so we have to go into the game with the same mentality that we did in that first half in Tallaght and approach the game in the same way.” “We want a positive result at the weekend, we’re hoping for a big crowd in and if we focus on those things in our own control, where we know we can improve, I do believe the results will come. The quality is there, we just need consistency over 90 minutes, not just put in a good half and show what we’re capable of doing.” The last meeting between the sides produced a 5-goal thriller. City came out on top that day in Turners Cross 3-2, Eva Mangan’s late free kick securing the three points. It was a 5-0 defeat last time out for City in Tallaght against Shamrock Rovers. City held Shamrock Rovers in the first half last time out before conceding five second half goals, three in the final 10 minutes of the game leaving Shamrock Rovers sitting third in the league a single point behind both Peamount and Galway United, unbeaten so far this campaign. Murphy takes the positives from the loss however “We were disappointed with the result up in Tallaght, we went up there and I think we gave a good account of ourselves but again, we have to cut out the errors and the goals we give away” “I don’t think it was a 5-0 game, in the first half I think we created enough chances that we could actually have led at half-time, but we didn’t take our chances. There are positives to take, we had five shots on target, we’re moving in the right direction, but we do need to get results now and start being a bit more ruthless in front of goal, find the back of the net, and when we can get ahead, we need to be able to be finishing games off.” Robert Augnier