Soccer
Peamount take on Cork City to keep challenge alive
By Daire Walsh
Peamount United will look to keep their Women’s National League title challenge alive when they take on Cork City at Turner’s Cross on Saturday (kick-off 5pm).
In a scenario that is unlikely to be found in any league across the globe, Peamount are one of four teams in the hunt for WNL supremacy with just three rounds of fixtures left to play. Although the Newcastle club are currently in third place – just ahead of Athlone Town on score difference – they find themselves two points adrift of defending champions Shelbourne in the runners-up spot.
Leading the way at the summit of the table with just a point to spare are 2021 FAI Women’s Cup winners Wexford Youths, who lead the way in the league’s roll of honour with four titles. Peamount will welcome the Slaneysiders to Peamount on October 22, while Wexford will finish out their campaign at home to Shelbourne.
This makes for an exciting end to the domestic season, but the Peas can’t afford to look beyond the challenge posed by Cork City this weekend. Having suffered a significant dip earlier in the year, James O’Callaghan’s Greenogue outfit are currently in a rich vein of form.
Since losing 4-0 to Shels at PLR Park back on July 16, Peamount have accumulated 22 points from a possible 24. A 1-1 draw with DLR Waves was the only blip during this eight-game run, which has seen them recording crucial wins over Shels and Athlone to keep themselves in contention for the top prize.
The Peas have dominated their recent duels against the Leesiders, recording seven-goal victories in each of their last three meetings.
O’Callaghan’s troops were 8-1 winners at the end of last season and at the start of the current campaign, with Republic of Ireland centurion Aine O’Gorman bagging five goals in the latter fixture.
Peamount came away with a 7-0 success on their visit to Cork on June 6, but the Munster side have improved substantially since then. That game was City’s first under the management of Danny Murphy, who picked up a Premier Division medal as a Shamrock Rovers player back in 2010.
In their last outing against Shelbourne last Saturday week, Cork took the lead through a Becky Cassin penalty. Despite conceding an own goal towards the end of the opening half, the Leesiders had looked set to take two points off the two in-a-row chasing Shels.
That was until former Peamount winger Megan Smyth-Lynch struck a superb winning goal from distance in the closing stages to aid the cause of her current side and leave her old team-mates with further ground to cover.
The evidence of recent weeks (where Cork have recorded victories at the expense of Treaty United, Sligo Rovers and Galway WFC) suggests the home team will be a tougher nut to crack on this occasion and the experience of players like O’Gorman, Niamh Reid-Burke and Stephanie Roche will be needed if Peamount are to remain in the title reckoning.