Danny Murphy is upbeat about Cork City display against Peamount

CORK City FC Women’s manager Danny Murphy believes that the team is ‘nearly there’ after their 2-1 defeat to title-chasing Peamount United at Turner’s Cross.

The Rebel Army went into the game after picking up their first point of the season, and they went 2-0 down at the end of the first half with Kate Mooney scoring twice for the Dubliners.

Eva Mangan swung in a free-kick with fifteen minutes remaining and Heidi Mackin broke this down for Lauren Walsh, who fired it into the bottom right corner at the Shed End.

City dominated the rest of the game and a late opportunity to equalise was undone by an excellent save from Niamh Reid Burke.

Regardless of the loss, Murphy is happy with his players and he knows that they are going in the right direction.

“From a tactical point of view, the information was given to the girls and the things they did, they took on board everything,” he said.

“They stuck to the game plan and it gave us that opportunity towards the last 20 or 30 minutes to go and give it a go.

“Great finish by Lauren Walsh, brilliant goal. You could see the confidence in the players once they got the goal.

“Even with Hannah Walsh’s punch, you could see the body language with shoulders back and they are ready to go. So many positives to take out of it.

“We’re trying to build and we’re looking for the future. We’re trying to build a team and a squad of players that are confident and going into games believing that they can win games.

“I think we’re nearly there, we’re not far away from being the team that we know that we can be.

“We still got things that we know we can tidy up a little bit but there is so much positives to take out of what we’re doing.” Mangan, along with Laura Shine, were just back from international duty with the Irish U19s and Murphy made sure to single them out for praise.

Mangan was instrumental for her country during the European Championships qualifying tournament as she got the winner against Norway, and she scored the first goal during a 4-1 win over Croatia.

“It’s brilliant for them. They had a couple of tough games. They are learning from being at an international level and playing against a high level of players. It is brilliant for us as a club,” he said.

“Eva is a player, she can change a game at any stage. Even if she isn’t playing well. Probably wasn’t her best game today but some of the things she did, other players in this league can’t do it.”