League hopes die
header and Murray fired wide from outside the box as the game crept past the half-hour mark.
With the way Gary Hunt set up his side, Wexford were not going to have that many chances themselves and they needed to take them when they arrived.
The Wexford manager probably wouldn’t have cherry-picked Aisling Frawley to land his side’s best opening, given the choice.
But that’s the way it happened. The Waterford native made a fantastic run in from the left wing, arriving on cue for Kylie Murphy’s superbly-weighted ball.
She took her time and shot past the recovering defender. The strike was heading for the corner but Amanda McQuillan, off-balance, just got her foot to it to stop Frawley’s shot hitting the net.
Gloria Douglas fired into the side-netting from a tight angle on the right and Murray barely tested Lenehan with a long-range shot as the half wound down.
Scoreless at the break, Wexford must have been thrilled with how the game was going.
Tails up, Youths continued to press, hassle and harry after the interval. The pressure was telling on Shelbourne, who are used to having it all their own way. Pearl Slattery, just booked for a foul in midfield, produced an outburst that referee Paula Brady couldn’t ignore and the captain was sent-off.
Against anyone else in the league, Youths would likely have made their numerical advantage count but Shelbourne didn’t lose an attacking threat. Due to the flow of the game, Slattery wasn’t as big a loss as she might have been and, initially, little changed.
Wexford had a half-chance when O’Riordan just couldn’t convert Kylie Murphy’s cross from the right, but soon after Shelbourne took the lead. Big officiating mistakes have cost Youths players and points in the last couple of years but it was a smaller error that started the ball rolling on the goal.
The visitors should have had a throw-in after Aisling Frawley knocked the ball off Siobhán Killeen’s instep over the sideline. The assistant gave it the other way. Killeen threw the ball into Rachel Graham who floated the cross perfectly between two defenders to Gloria Douglas.
The Shels attacker pulled the ball back to Leanne Kiernan on the edge of the area. She cut across the face of goal, made herself a yard of space and fired low to Sophie Lenehan’s net to give her side the lead.
There was a change to a more adventurous Wexford set-up after the goal, as there clearly had to be.
Neither Kylie Murphy nor Claire O’RIordan could trouble McQuillan with shots shortly after the Shelbourne breakthrough.
A fumble from a long Murray free by Lenehan meant that Nicola Sinnott had to clear a Leanne Kiernan shot off the line in the 68th minute. The Wexford stopper then made a tidy save from another Kiernan strike.
While Shelbourne still looked dangerous on the break, Wexford had more of the ball.
O’Riordan just missed a header from Hansberry’s cross, and then the Youths attacker dinked a lovely ball into the penalty area that was just inches away from Murphy’s toe.
Youths’ best chance came and went when Jess Gleeson kneed Hansberry’s right-wing free-kick over the bar from six yards out with seven minutes remaining. A long ball by the Wexford defender nearly got O’Riordan away with two minutes left but the Limerick native dragged her shot wide.
Right until the end Wexford went at their hosts. Linda Douglas forced a cross in from the right in added time but O’Riordan couldn’t find the telling touch. Despite being a hard defeat for Wexford to take, in reality it wasn’t this performance, or game, that cost them their title.
Youths still have two home matches to play, first on Wednesday week against Peamount and then three days later versus Cork. Two wins may well be enough for second spot, not a bad return considering the trials and tribulations of the longest of short seasons.