WU17 vs Cobh Ramblers Preview

Cork City’s WU17 suffered their first loss of the season last weekend, but it’s not one that Jess Lawton will dwell on for long. “Yeah, we went up to DLR Waves last weekend with just 11 players, we had three girls away with the U16 Irish camp in Malta, and a couple of the girls who had been with the U15s picked up a bug and weren’t well enough to play. DLR were well organised, and were strong attacking on their right-hand side, but we dealt with it well and settled and took the lead through a lovely Niamh Cotter strike from outside the box.”

Leading at the break, Lawton was happy with the performance, but an unseasonably warm April weekend compounded the issue of the small squad. “We felt we were on top, but it was a hot day on Astro for both teams, but DLR could bring fresh legs from the bench, and they drew level through a free kick. We were tiring but conceded two goals very quickly, a little inexperience, we let our heads drop, but we rallied again, and Chloe Atkinson scored a lovely goal to bring it back to 3-2. A good game, and a good experience for the girls, teaching us that sometimes, when you’re winning you need to manage the game.”

The WU17 will hope to be back to full strength this weekend for the short trip to Cobh this weekend. “I think it’s the shortest away trip we’ve ever had” laughs Lawton “and it’s great to see them in the league, I’ve watched them a few times over the past few weeks and they’re growing into the league, some really good players and well coached. It’ll be competitive, everyone will be up for a local Munster Derby, and it’s great to have two strong teams in Cork playing at National League level showing how strong players are in the region.”

The U19s suffered a home loss to Peamount United last Sunday, the team featuring a number of players who had featured in Senior and U17 games the previous day and Lawton admits, they struggled to get out of the blocks “We, started slow, but credit where credit’s due - Peas moved the ball really well and we just found it hard to settle into the game, which was a lot to do with how Peamount set up.”

City fell behind to two goals, one from a free-kick and one from open play but improved as the first half wore on. “We did get ourselves back into the game, and were threatening them at times, but we just couldn’t find the back of the net” said Lawton “we had a good chat at half-time, working on how we could improve and we put up a better display in the second half, we got on the score-sheet through Orlaith Deasy but gave away a penalty which allowed them to stretch the lead again.”

“There were positives, but also things we need to learn from and improve on, it’s a competitive league and we just must be switched on from start in every game. We have a free week this week, we had been due to play Treaty United, but now with them not participating in the league we have an opportunity to get everyone organised and back in and look at the next fixture and work on areas we can improve.”