By Harry Shorthose @(harrysarticles)
Wexford Youths are the 2019 So Hotels FAI Women’s Cup Champions with a Lauren Kelly brace and a Kylie Murphy solo effort giving them back to back titles.
Youths head coach, Tom Elmes was delighted with the win, “It’s fantastic to come in to your national stadium and have the opportunity to play in a final, so to get the win is an even better feeling.
“We had a gameplan. We changed up our shape a little bit, we knew it was important to go in and play our game and not get dragged into the way they wanted to play and if we could do that, we’d do well.”
The Youths skipper Kylie Murphy credited the fight within the team, “It shows what we have in our locker and in our dressing room, that it’s just relentless. We went ahead twice in the game and they came back but we didn’t just lie down, we kept going. We re-grouped after my goal, after someone went down injured, and we just got together and said we don’t need to score again, they do, all we have to do is keep them out”
Lauren Kelly’s brace was the highlight of the game for many people and her manager was pleased with his talisman’s performance, “I told her in the warm up that she was going to score. I just had a feeling that she was going to get one. Playing two up top, we knew that Rianna [Jarrett] was going to draw most of the attention so that was going to free up the second striker and it worked. You could see that with both goals.”
Murphy acknowledged the laid back attitude that Kelly has. “She’s lethal, she’s unbelievable! She was just so calm out there as it went in but that’s how she is, she walks around like she’s asleep, that’s Lauren all over. She’s not walking around in there like she’s just scored two goals in a cup final, she’s just so laid back.”
It’s been a very frustrating season for the Youths, losing the League Cup final to Shelbourne and coming third in the league, something Elmes did acknowledge, “It’s been difficult all season with injuries and players not being available. If players aren’t training, you can’t always pick them. It’s been frustrating with new players coming in. The attitude of the two girls, Lyn [Craven] and Lauren [Kelly] has been excellent. Players came in but weren’t ready for that level of commitment, other players left because they wanted more game time so it’s probably taken us a bit longer to get the team gelled than we would have liked.
“We seemed to click better when we were at the Champions League and since then, our performances didn’t get the results they warranted at times. It’s nice then to get some silverware to show for the season we’ve had.”
Murphy agreed with that and said that today was an improvement on the past few months. “It’s better definitely. It wasn’t good enough for us but we’ll take it. Three trophies last season, one this season, you can do the maths, it’s definitely not good enough that this is the only trophy we picked up.”
Picture: Wexford Youths FC