Jarrett grabs the winner
Victory sets up tonight’s game of the season
WEXFORD YOUTHS WOMEN PEAMOUNT UNITED 2 1
RIANNA JARRETT flashed home a 58th-minute winner as Wexford Youths beat Peamount United in a high-octane Continental Tyres Women’s National League tie in Ferrycarrig Park on Saturday.
Gone were the shackles of the League Cup final loss seven days earlier, and back was the intensity that has seen Youths now beat the pre-season title favourites in their last two league encounters.
Also gone was the slow start. Wexford came out of the blocks quickly and hit their visitors with a hunger that took a while to match. It didn’t win the hosts the game but it unsettled Peamount, which was half the battle.
The victory sets up the game of the season, a home clash with fellow title contenders Shelbourne tonight (Tuesday), a contest that could all-but end the two-horse race for league glory, leave the sides deadlocked at the top or something in between, depending on the result.
This was also Tom Elmes’ finest hour as Youths manager. It’s clear that the previous encounter wasn’t played at the level that his side are capable of, and the response from the boss was sharp and strong.
Anybody who assumed their place was safe previously was handed an important lesson here. Elmes made four changes, and only Doireann Fahey coming in for Becky Cassin was enforced, with three others left out of the starting eleven.
Sophie Lenehan was back between the posts, McKenna Davidson replaced Aisling Frawley on the right, and Emma Hansberry dropped to the bench, with Orla Casey coming in and giving her best performance of the season.
While Lauren Dwyer and Rianna Jarrett were the two best performers on the park, Casey’s 80 minutes might have been the most important, as the youngster was a wrecking ball in midfield.
You know what you are going to get from Edel Kennedy and Kylie Murphy, but to have Casey disrupt everything Peamount tried to achieve was hugely important.
The Dublin side were missing Amber Barrett, but Áine O’Gorman switched inside and Dearbhaile Beirne played on the right, so they were hardly weakened. In fact, O’Gorman was sharper in that spot but only when she got away from the brilliant Dwyer and attacked elsewhere.
However, the visitors offered nothing in the opening stages. It took Wexford nine minutes to go close when, from a Fahy corner, Rianna Jarrett off-loaded to Kennedy but the midfielder scooped her effort over and onto the roof of the net.
Jarrett was providing a critical focal point at the top of the Wexford attack. Between coming short and taking the ball to feet inside there was no way of stopping her influence, and it was all about danger management for Peamount.
The Wexford striker got to the byline and pulled back a fantastic ball across the box in the eleventh minute but there was nobody in the right spot to accept the gift.
She won a free-kick after dribbling from deep but her shot was easily held by Naoise McAloon.
When Peamount did finally create something, in the 19th minute, Eleanor Ryan-Doyle arrived at the back post unmarked but volleyed O’Gorman’s cross over the bar.
Sophie Lenehan had one sticky moment, when Megan Smyth-Lynch’s cross slipped out of her grasp, vut the resulting Ryan-Doyle shot was cleared to safety and the Youths ‘keeper re-grouped immediately and was dominant for the remainder of the game.
Kylie Murphy got in behind the Peamount defence from a long free but her lofted shot clipped the top of the crossbar on the way over.
O’Gorman saw her strike well held by Lenehan at the other end, while SmythLynch hit the top of the woodwork with an overhit cross.
In the 45th minute Edel Kennedy split the Peamount defence but McKenna Davidson just missed out on a telling touch.
However, the Hawaiian took her time when squaring across the box in the next attack, and Katrina Parrock was hacked down flicking it around the corner.
It was very close to the edge of the box but Seamus Kelly gave the free-kick. Interestingly, with Jarrett and Murphy standing over the dead-ball, they called Fahey in from left-back.
At first it looked like she might be a decoy, but then Jarrett left the scene and the summer signing from Peamount stepped up left-footed and flashed it over the wall to the net.
Down at the break, there was bound to be a response from the visitors. Niamh Farrelly scooped over from eight yards out after being picked out by Beirne’s low cross.
Wexford settled and Jarrett tested McAloon with a low strike from Parrock’s lay-off.
However, in the 54th minute O’Gorman got the wrong side of Orlaith Conlon, and the Wexford defender dived in, knocking the former international striker to the ground for a penalty.
Having picked up a soft yellow in the first-half, the Youths defender should have gone with a second for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.
Luckily for the home faithful, referee Seamus Kelly kept his red card in his pocket, again. Ryan-Doyle gave Lenehan no chance with a clinical low penalty to the goalkeeper’s right to level the game.
The Wexford response came quickly, as just four minutes later Jarrett slipped Kennedy into the clear.
Her shot was heading to the corner but came out off Lauryn O’Callaghan’s heels. The ball was recycled to Jarrett and she flashed past McAloon to give Youths their advantage back.
Kylie Murphy pulled an excellent diving save out of McAloon as her side went looking for a third.
At the other end Dwyer brilliantly defended a devilish Beirne cross and Lenehan sucked the last ounce of life out of Peamount with five minutes left when she came through a crowd of bodies and plucked O’Gorman’s free-kick from the sky.
In fact, it was Jarrett who came closest to adding a late goal when she headed Emma Hansberry’s deep free-kick wide of the far post. The win leaves Wexford three points clear of Shelbourne with four games remaining.
Wexford Youths: Sophie Lenehan; Nicola Sinnott, Lauren Dwyer, Orlaith Conlon, Doireann Fahey; Kylie Murphy (capt.); McKenna Davidson, Edel Kennedy, Orla Casey, Katrina Parrock; Rianna Jarrett. Subs. - Aisling Frawley for Davidson (71), Emma Hansberry for Casey (80), also Ciamh Dollard, Cliodhna Ní Shé, Rachel Hutchinson, Ciara Delaney, Aoife Slattery.
Peamount United: Naoise McAloon; Lauryn O’Callaghan, Louise Corrigan (capt.), Chloe Maloney, Niamh Barnes; Karen Duggan, Niamh Farrelly; Dearbhaile Beirne, Eleanor Ryan-Doyle, Megan Smyth-Lynch; Áine O’Gorman. Subs. Sarah McKevitt for Smyth-Lynch (70), Louise Masterson for Ryan-Doyle (90), also Niamh Reid-Burke, Jade Reddy, Gillian Keenan, Lauren Kealy, Amber Barrett.
Referee: Seamus Kelly (Wexford).