Wexford FC Women v Galway

[ForzaForth]

Game of extraordinarily few chances in Ferrycarrig this evening as Wexford’s defence shone brightly but eventually won by the last kick of the game following a piece of intuitive brilliance by that giant of women’s football in Wexford, Kylie Murphy. This is rumoured to be Kylie’s final season but her importance to the home side was emphasised by her cameo appearance during the final half-hour. Wexford started with Maria, Lolly, Della, Lauren, Becky, Aoife, Leah, Ellen, Rossi, Freya and Anna. Wexford found it very hard to create anything in the first half as they could hardly manufacture a constructive piece of play in their opponent’s half. Galway looked the more cohesive but the solid Wexford defence of Della, Lauren, Anna and Freya coupled with Maria O’Sullivan between the posts largely shut out the Galway attack during the first period. The Wexford defensive performance was also greatly assisted by Becky Cassin who mopped up a huge of ball in front of the back four and was ably assisted by Aoife Kelly playing that bit more forward in the Wexford midfield. On 21 minutes, Galway had a free header beyond Wexford’s far post but it was headed over. Only real Wexford chance came on 34 minutes when Rossi swung in a good cross from the right wing – with her left foot of course, and the final Galway defender managed to win the ball when under severe pressure from Lolly Conlon and Ellen Molloy. The Wexford defence did manage to give the ball away in their own third on 37 minutes, but the shot was a comfortable push away for a goalkeeper of the standard of Maria O’Sullivan. In the final minute, Galway won a corner and the ball was struck goalwards by a Galway attacker but Lauren Dwyer managed to hack the ball to safety and it was 0-0 at halftime with Galway having had the better of the half.

[ForzaForth]

Wexford definitely improved their fluidity in the second period although former Wexford player, Ceola Bergin, had a really good effort from far out in the first minute which Maria O’Sullivan acrobatically tipped over her own crossbar. On 16 minutes. Kylie Murphy came on in place of Leah McGrath who again had been playing an isolated role while marked by two class Galway centre-halves in Kinnevey and Beletic. Kylie’s experience in moving off the defender’s shoulder began to get the Wexford attack going and she soon smacked an unstoppable header off the inside of the Galway post but it stayed out. The match was looking very much like a stalemate at this point although Bergin had a left-footed effort on the Wexford goal which wasn’t too far wide of the target and, with a few minutes to go, Della Doherty broke forward for Wexford and had a good shooting chance but shot well over. Four minutes of injury-time and, in the final minute of that additional time, the ball fell to Galway’s Ava Mullins facing her own goal with a simple backpass available to Nicole Nix in the Galway goal, but Kylie Murphy read the intention well before the backpass was executed and slid the ball past Nix to put Wexford ahead. Ball was moved back to the centre-circle and the referee blew the final whistle. Tough on Galway but they will surely manage to secure third place in the league while the three points puts Wexford reasonably securely in fourth. Best for Wexford were the back five of Maria, Della, Anna, Lauren and Freya ably assisted by Becky and Aoife while Wexford will continue their search for a cloning machine for Kylie Murphy. 1-0 to Wexford at fulltime.