Bar set high by manager Elmes
TOM ELMES was left marvelling at his side again after their gutsy victory over Peamount in the Continental Tyres Women’s FAI Senior Cup final on Sunday.
The Wexford Youths boss reiterated that the aim for the season was to take the league, but his squad are a relentless bunch.
‘Look, I’ve said it after the league title, if someone had just offered me the league title this year I’d have took it. You’re going to a club where they’re used to success, well, not used to it, they expect it, and they know how to go about it in terms of their workrate.
‘With regards my job, it was to create that environment that they could go and do that and learn and be prepared as best they can going into matches,’ Elmes explained.
‘Sometimes they don’t get the credit they deserve. We’ve lost an awful lot of players this year. It’s only when you look at who’s actually left our squad you realise that the players out there have really dug in for the results we’ve got this year.
‘I think in any league game you’re not always going to perform to your best, but the sign of a good side is you have an off day and still get the result you deserve.’
He revealed that it was Rianna Jarrett’s decision to give it a go, once she had been cleared to return.
‘We’d kept an eye on her. We always knew that if we had that chance that we would go with her, so she had an assessment there during the week and the club doctor assessed her and had a look and basically we had a chat with Rianna.
‘We said basically “look, we feel that this is really down to you, it’s your call”, so look, you’re going to tell an international centre-forward that you’ve an opportunity to go and play in the FAI Cup final in the Aviva, what is she going to say?’
Elmes believed that it took his side a little while to settle into the game but they were able to work out their early woes and dominate the game.
‘I think we grew into it as the game went on,’ he said. ‘If anything, I think maybe the half-time whistle came just that little bit too early for us, just when we’d got our goal.
‘The half-time whistle came and it kind of upset our momentum a little bit but also gave us a chance to put a few things right, and we know we needed to do that.
‘Peamount got a lot of space around the 18-yard box and the ball into more areas that hurt us a little bit.
‘So I think second-half we fixed that a little bit and we reduced them down to very few chances. And we always knew we were dangerous on the break so we knew we had to just stick it in there and work hard.’
With the treble wrapped up, Elmes and his team have given themselves a tough act to follow and he returned some interesting comments when looking ahead to next season, in particular with regards Youths’ Champions League campaign.
‘I’ve set the bar quite high haven’t I, not too high, but quite high! Look, we’ll enjoy the off-season I’m sure. We’ll have a good conversation with the club, we are definitely going to need a lot more support going forward (so) that we can go and compete.
‘I mean, Champions League is an absolute dream to go (to). I think going taking part is one thing, going competing is another, and ideally we want to go and compete but we do need a lot more support if we are going to do that.’
Those conversations are for another week, but for now Elmes and his side can sit back and reflect on a job well done.
Still, it won’t be long before preparations begin for another season, another in which the boss and his side will expect to excel.