Shamrock Rovers 2 Cork City 1

Despite producing a commendable second-half performance, Cork City fell to a narrow defeat at the hands of Shamrock Rovers in the SSE Airtricity Women’s Premier Division at Tallaght Stadium on Saturday evening.

Seeking to bounce back from a 4-2 league defeat at home to Galway United seven days earlier, City went close to breaking the deadlock as Christina Dring fired wide off a Fiana Bradley delivery on the right wing in the 11th minute.

Yet Joy Ralph and Ella Kelly had previously gone close for the Rovers at the opposite end and the hosts ultimately opened the scoring on 13 minutes. After an Emily Corbet strike was deflected onto the post by a City defender, former Republic of Ireland women’s international Aine O’Gorman was on hand to comfortably sweep home the rebound.

This was a setback for the Leesiders and while a long-distance effort from Lauren Homan forced a low save out of Rovers netminder Summer Lawless, the City defence breathed a sigh of relief when Ralph headed a Kelly cross agonisingly past the target.

The Hoops continued to pose an attacking threat as the play progressed and when she was picked out inside the area by O’Gorman on the half-hour mark, Ralph turned sharply before unleashing a powerful shot to the back of the City net.

This left City staring into a 2-0 deficit at the interval, albeit matters could have been worse for Frank Kelleher’s side if Clodagh Fitzgerald hadn’t made a brace of fine stops towards the end of the opening period.

The Cork back-four were also battling to good effect and with skipper Ciara McNamara bringing her experience to bear, the visitors largely restricted Rovers to half-chances during the third quarter.

Although City only named four players on their substitutes’ bench, the youthful Amy McCarthy was introduced for Fiana Bradley on 62 minutes and she was perilously to getting a goal-bound shot away from inside the penalty area moments later.

Shaunagh McCarthy also fired over the crossbar from a tight angle inside the final quarter and when Eva Mangan capitalised on the hard work of Sophia Redmond to superbly rattle the net on 76 minutes, a grandstand conclusion to the contest suddenly lay in store.

They ultimately fell to a fifth loss in their last six Women’s Premier Division games, but City can nevertheless bring a number of positives from this tie into their FAI Cup clash against Peamount United at Turner’s Cross next weekend.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Summer Lawless; Fiona Owens, Scarlett Herron, Maria Reynolds, Keelin Comiskey; Ella Kelly, Melissa O’Kane; Aine O’Gorman, Claire O’Reilly (Katie O’Reilly 62), Emily Corbet (Anna Butler 83); Joy Ralph.

CORK CITY: Clodagh Fitzgerald; Zoe Finnerty, Ciara O’Driscoll, Ciara McNamara, Shaunagh McCarthy (Sophia Redmond 74); Lauren Homan, Heidi Mackin; Fiana Bradley (Amy McCarthy 62), Eva Mangan, Christina Dring; Ellie O’Brien.

Referee: Glen Geraghty.