Shels seal deal
Single goal is enough to sink Youths
SHELBOURNE 1 WEXFORD YOUTHS 0 A SECOND consecutive away loss saw Wexford Youths exit the Women’s National League Cup without really putting it up to Shelbourne in the A.U.L. complex, Dublin, on Saturday.
Fiona Donnelly’s deflected strike, that cruelly ricocheted off Lauren Dwyer and nestled in the Wexford net twelve minutes after the interval, proved to be the difference in a game that the hosts dominated for large spells.
If Youths manager Laura Heffernan is looking for positives, at least the return to a more defensive structure made her team compact against the weakest Shelbourne side to face Wexford since their induction into the league three seasons ago.
The hosts left Amanda McQuillan and Leanne Kiernan on the bench, were missing Niamh Walsh, Alex Kavanagh and captain Pearl Slattery, on top of all their catastrophic losses from last year’s side, but still had enough to see off a Youths team that shows limited cohesion two months into the season.
When results are going well, it’s easy to make excuses for a team not performing to a level that represents the quality within their squad. However, luck is fleeting and eventually hacking around, hoping for the best, will get found out.
The welcome return of Lauren Dwyer certainly helped shore up the back four. It should also allow thoughts of Linda Douglas’ return to a more attacking role as Youths continue to struggle to get much return from the wings.
Chelsee Snell was the latest to get a run out on the right and was the first withdrawn. Aoibhín Webb remained marooned out wide and the sight of her lumbering up and down the flank, running after punts down the channels, was as uninspiring as ever.
The Carlow native has a fantastic football brain, and can drift into vacant spaces between the lines and thread balls through the best of defences when she’s confident and used correctly. She also has the intelligence to be a striker and has scored some superb goals. A winger she will never be.
In a week that saw Colin Bell name his Ireland squad for the friendly against Iceland, Jess Gleeson was again a notable absence. A regular in Sue Ronan’s squads towards the end of her tenure, the Waterford native hasn’t got a look-in recently.
It’s pretty clear that her position in this Wexford team, as a holding midfielder, is not only unsuited to her considerable talent but is also now damaging her international career and arguably her ability to attract attention from professional clubs abroad.
Kylie Murphy was her latest partner in the deep position but it’s an area of the field that Roma McLoughlin and Fiona Donnelly won.
To be fair, it was mostly the former. Without McLoughlin, Shelbourne would struggle to beat any of the top teams right now, she is that influential.
For all the problems, all their failings and regardless of their weaknesses, Shelbourne go out on the pitch and express themselves.
Last season, Gary Hunt’s biggest problem was that he had too much belief in his players, to his own detriment at times.
Right now, Wexford are set up like the latest plucky Moldovan champion sent out to the Camp Nou, hoping to hang on for dear life.
The thing is, Youths haven’t played Barcelona this season. Somewhere in the middle lies the utopia, or at least the Wexford side of two seasons ago.
They started fairly aimlessly in the first 20 minutes. Shelbourne, facing a Wexford wall, won an eighth-minute corner that was taken by Niamh Prior and headed over the crossbar by the ineffective Kate Mooney.
The Shelbourne striker got a shot off on goal in the eleventh minute but it failed to trouble Tamara Furlong, back in goal after a difficult few weeks for Sophie Lenehan. Prior was next to get a shot away that was well blocked by Linda Douglas.
Then, in the space of a little over 60 seconds Youths created the sum total of their first-half opportunities. In the 20th minute a launched Nicola Sinnott ball forward was competed for by Claire O’Riordan.
It looped out to Orla Casey, and she headed it back to the Limerick native but her hooked shot whizzed wide.
Seconds later Snell’s ball into the danger-area was competed for by Webb.
Her attention forced Niamh Reid-Burke to drop the ball but O’Riordan couldn’t beat the Shelbourne stopper from close range. Murphy missed the target with the resulting header from Webb’s right-wing corner.
And that was that. Shelbourne got the initiative back but didn’t create that much. Courtney Higgins tested the Youths ‘keeper from distance, Sinnott put in a fantastic last-gasp tackle on Siobhán Killeen, and McLoughlin cracked a shot that Furlong did well to hold.
Goal-less at the break, it’s hard to know which side was the happier. A slice by Linda Douglas at the start of the second-half almost let Prior in but the Wexford defender recovered to put in the telling block.
At the other end Kylie Murphy and O’Riordan twice combined promisingly, only for the hosts to snuff out the chances. Then Shelbourne took the lead in the 57th minute when Prior got past Douglas on the left and pulled back for Donnelly. Her shot looked to be heading wide but struck Dwyer and gave Furlong no chance.
Orla Casey’s last involvement was flashing high and wide from Webb’s square ball midway through the second-half. At the other end, Douglas almost put into her own net when Killeen crossed invitingly to the back post.
From the resulting corner Wexford broke quickly with Webb quickly finding O’Riordan galloping over the halfway line on the left. She returned the ball at the perfect moment but with only Reid-Burke to beat, Webb dragged her shot harmlessly wide of the far post.
One of the more farcical moments of the match came in the 78th minute when Nicola Sinnott was yellow carded for going after a spare ball when Shelbourne were time-wasting. In fairness to referee Kevin Byrne, that one moment aside, he really had a strong game, refusing to be influenced by the constant, ludicrous shouts and roars from the sideline.
Douglas was forced to block a Prior shot close to goal with eleven minutes left. McLoughlin almost wrapped up victory shortly after when her delightful dinked effort beat Furlong but also missed the goal by inches.
As the game ticked into the final minute Wexford went close again when Gleeson’s rocket from 40 yards out flew narrowly over the crossbar. Then, in the 92nd minute Rachel Hutchinson’s perfectly-weighted pass released O’Riordan but the Youths attacker couldn’t beat Reid-Burke.
When Amy Walsh sent the resulting corner out of play, the game was up for Wexford.
Youths have one more game before the mid-season break, against UCD Waves at home on Saturday in the Shield semi-final. SHELBOURNE: Niamh Reid-Burke; Jamie Finn, Tiegan Ruddy, Seana Cooke, Courtney Higgins; Rachel Graham (capt.); Roma McLoughlin, Fiona Donnelly; Siobhán Killeen, Kate Mooney, Niamh Prior. Subs. - Leanne Kiernan for Mooney (55), Lynn Craven for Killeen (80), also Amanda McQuillan, Chloe McNamee, Carla Moran. WEXFORD YOUTHS: Tamara Furlong; Linda Douglas, Nicola Sinnott, Orlaith Conlon, Lauren Dwyer; Jess Gleeson, Kylie Murphy (capt.); Chelsee Snell, Orla Casey, Aoibhín Webb; Claire O’Riordan. Subs. - Amy Walsh for Snell (62), Rachel Hutchinson for Casey (71), Jenny O’Keeffe for Dwyer (76), also Sophie Lenehan, Becky Cassin, Siobhán Doolan. REFEREE: Kevin Byrne.