Cork City can build on impressive win over Treaty United
Treaty United's Heidi O'Sullivan is tackled by Cork City's Aoife Cronin. Picture. Brian Arthur
NOW that is how you bounce back from a disappointing result.
There is no getting away from the fact that last Saturday evening, Cork City were embarrassed in the Women’s National League as they were comprehensively beaten 8-1 by title-chasing Peamount United.
Even the consolation itself came courtesy of an own goal and it was well and truly a consolation as it came with just four minutes remaining to make the score 8-1 at Greenogue.
The result meant that the pressure was piled on City heading into their crucial fixture away to Munster Rivals Treaty United just three days later.
Speaking to the Echo shortly after full-time, manager Paul Farrell took the opportunity to voice his displeasure at the Football Association of Ireland for the manner in which they rearranged these games.
“We’re not happy with it at all,” insisted Farrell. “It’s very unfair of the FAI to put us on Tuesday night at 7.15 pm after two away games and another away game Saturday. I think the FAI shouldn’t have done it.
“We seemed to get shafted with the time and shafted with the change of week. This fixture was supposed to be at home.
"We did the FAI and Peamount a favour by swapping it and a couple of weeks later they’re telling us we have to play a game between Peamount and DLR.
“We’re not happy with the game being on Tuesday, but we just have to do a quick turnaround now and make sure that we get prepared for it.”
Farrell was right to voice his frustrations and the hope is that they will have been noted - even stronger views may have been expressed behind the scenes - and taken into consideration going forward.
But there were no more changes to be made to the schedule on short notice so just over 72 hours after their hammering away to the Peas, City were on the road again for a massive clash against their rivals from Limerick.
Perhaps as a consequence of that loss, or maybe it was just because of fatigue, Farrell rang the changes - seven in total - with only Ciara McNamara, Zara Foley, Becky Cassin, and Eva Mangan retaining their place against Treaty.
The three points moved them up a place in the league table and into eighth but they are now looking up rather than down as they are closer to seventh than the bottom, thankfully.
But they won’t be looking as far up as their next opponents DLR Waves who sit in fourth after an impressive start to the campaign - inspired by former City winger Sarah McKevitt - although they were beaten 1-0 in midweek at home against Athlone Town.
The Leesiders will go there in a confident mood but they will need to ensure they can build on this latest victory.
They weren’t able to do that after beating Bohemians where they were defeated 5-1 by Wexford and then came the aforementioned Peamount game.
City’s record against the better sides in the division is really poor and they have often started too slowly and conceded a number of goals inside the opening minutes.
This needs to change, quickly. Saturday afternoon away to DLR Waves would be a good time to do that.
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