League title retained as women win versus Cork
New-look women triumph in Elmes’ first year at helm
THERE’S A common misconception about this Wexford Youths team, now Continental Tyres Women’s National League champions for the fourth time in five seasons after this Ferrycarrig Park victory over Cork City on Saturday.
It goes along the lines of ‘well, they keep that group of players together and churn out the results’. More often than not it’s unintentional but it does this latest success a disservice, as this was far from routine maintenance.
Tom Elmes took over in late winter and things were a little messy. He became the fourth manager in four seasons, and in the footballing sense he inherited a talented but slightly lost squad and went to work.
Wexford always welcome new players but those coming in have to ‘get it’. Hard work doesn’t warrant applause but is expected, and if you break into this squad it’s about putting everything you have on the line and making yourself better. A team can be a reflection of its senior leaders, and Youths are exactly that.
And Elmes had to piece things together but the players were hungry to improve and bought into it. Several newbies came into the fold, some fell away, some battled on. The mentality of this squad never changed, as they wanted to play football and the boss allowed them to express themselves.
It was an important start and there were statement wins early. To kick Limerick off the park, doing things the right way, was an important barometer for where this side stood back in March and for where they could go.
Things were still only taking shape and a home draw with Peamount in April turned out to be a hugely important result. The crushing of Shelbourne in the A.U.L. complex a month later was a roar of intent and a first-ever league win away to the north Dublin side.
Wexford went into the mid-season break at the top of the league, the football was improving week after week, and there was already an inevitability about the remainder of the season.
But things never go that smoothly and, after kicking Peamount off the field in Greenogue, the loss of Claire O’Riordan certainly hurt.
More new players came into the fold and this is where things got vitally important. Aoife Slattery, a youngster with little experience, emerged, McKenna Davidson gave up perennial sun for showers, and Doireann Fahey turned from someone Peamount couldn’t do anything with, to someone Wexford couldn’t do without.
Mediocre opponents were dispatched without fuss but there were speed bumps on the road ahead, as Wexford morphed into another team again. Things didn’t quite get back to the heights of mid-summer, but Youths smelt success and they simply don’t give up league titles that are within grasp.
The Champions League campaign took a lot out of Wexford and contributed hugely to their only loss of the league campaign, against Shelbourne at the end of August. Mental fatigue seemed to stay around for a few weeks, but the League Cup final defeat was probably a blessing in disguise.
Youths came back the following week, determined to leak no more oil and put the final nail in the Peamount coffin.
Career enhancers Shelbourne had a chance to burst the title race open the following week, but Wexford simply wanted it too much.
A draw away to Galway wasn’t exactly celebrated but it was vital nonetheless, as it gave Wexford a chance to put the league to bed with a game to go. Now think about that assertion again, the one that says Youths keep churning out wins with the same group of players.
Just six of the starting elev- en against Cork began the title clincher against Peamount almost twelve months earlier. Two of the three substitutes used were not with Wexford in 2017, so this is more than consolidation, this is the re-birth of what made Youths champions in the first place.
Becky Cassin’s injury three evenings earlier naturally made room for the returning Emma Hansberry in the starting eleven. It probably wouldn’t have been the change Tom Elmes would have made given a free choice, but those are the cards he was dealt.
It gave the aforementioned Fahey and Slattery another start and both continue to mature and develop quickly into superb contributors. Cork came into the game without Saoirse Noonan, their leading markswoman, but they still had more of a go than some who come to Ferrycarrig Park.
The problem with trying to push on, even a little, against Wexford is that they can hurt you. That’s especially true when they come out of the blocks quickly and they were able to start on the front foot, despite this being their third game in eight days.
Youths had a couple of half-openings in the early moments but nothing that caused Amanda Budden too many problems.
That was until Aisling Frawley stole the ball from Savannah McCarthy on the byline and squared for Katrina Parrock, but with the whole goal to aim at from eight yards out, the winger pulled her shot wide.
Experience is vitally important for many situations and Parrock, the serial winner that she is, had no problem forgetting that.
In fact, just five minutes later Hansberry released Murphy down the right, the captain swung in her cross, and Parrock volleyed a far more difficult chance to the bottom left corner to open the scoring.
Wexford kept the tempo up, kept pushing for a second, and it came in the 27th minute. Murphy will take the assist again, this time from a little six-yard pass that found Hansberry in a pocket of space, and the Sligo native took a touch and watched in glee as her shot caromed off Nathalie O’Brien and flew over Budden to the net.
For the only real time in the game, Cork had a little more of the ball as Wexford took a breather before the break.
Still, they couldn’t get the better of the Youths defence and the only scare Sophie Lenehan had was when she had to react like lightning to a Orlaith Conlon’s testing back pass with Katie McCarthy lurking.
Just 45 minutes from league glory, Wexford looked to control things but kept picking their moments to seek the third, clinching goal.
They were dealt a blow when Edel Kennedy stood on the ball on the run, appearing to damage her knee in the process, and she was forced off.
Parrock volleyed wide from McKenna Davidson’s cross in the 52nd minute before a succession of Youths corners came to nothing. The Hawaiian had the ball in the net just after the hour mark but she was offside from Hansberry’s classy pass.
Youths should have wrapped up the points and title in the 70th minute when Hansberry’s squared low cross found Frawley arriving in the middle, but the makeshift striker lofted her shot and Eve Badana made a solid save.
The game was almost exclusively played in the Cork half but Sophie Lenehan did make a solid low stop from Christina Dring’s volley. She was also breathing a sigh of relief when Lauren Dwyer sliced a volley wide of her own goal in the 86th minute.
The game was up when Frawley won a corner on the left in the 90th minute. However, Youths wanted to finish in style and they managed it when Dwyer (with maybe a little help) bundled the ball home from Hansberry’s delivery at the back post.
It was a fitting way to clinch this league title, and it will be hard to wrestle ‘player of the year’ away from Rianna Jarrett, but from this neutral’s vantage point, Dwyer would be just as deserving having converted from full-back to all-conquering centre-half almost seamlessly this season.
When the celebrations ease down, Wexford have one more mini-aim for the weekend, as if they can keep a clean sheet against U.C.D. Waves they will finish the season with the lowest goals conceded record in the league’s history.
Then all attention turns to the Continental Tyres FAI Women’s Cup final at the Aviva seven days later, where Wexford Youths will face Peamount United looking to complete a three-trophy season.
Wexford Youths: Sophie Lenehan; Nicola Sinnott, Lauren Dwyer, Orlaith Conlon, Doireann Fahey; Aoife Slattery, Kylie Murphy (capt.); Emma Hansberry, Edel Kennedy, Katrina Parrock; Aisling Frawley. Subs. - McKenna Davidson for Kennedy, inj. (48), Orla Casey for Parrock (81), Cliodhna Ní Shé for Sinnott (84), also Ciamh Dollard, Ciara Delaney, Becky Cassin, Rianna Jarrett.
Cork City: Amanda Budden; Rachel O’Regan, Ciara McNamara (capt.), Savannah McCarthy, Nathalie O’Brien; Kate O’Donovan, Maggie Duncliffe; Eadaoin Lyons, Danielle Burke, Christina Dring; Katie McCarthy. Subs. - Eve Badana for Budden (46), Riona Crowley for Duncliffe (74), Megan Sheehan for Burke (78), also Martha O’Sullivan.
Referee: Ian O’Keeffe (Waterford).