DCU 4 – 12
IT Sligo 2 – 11
Mike Hurley
At St. Clare’s
Three first half goals – all of which came from the boot of sharpshooter Catriona Foley – proved vital in securing DCU ladies their first points of the season.
The final scoreline is somewhat injudicious to the brave efforts of IT Sligo as the visitors dominated for large stretches of the tie, but the old adage that goals win games certainly rang true.
The sides traded points early on with Sligo’s Eilís Codd setting the pace. Indeed, the Yeats County held the initiative until 8 minutes of madness swung the pendulum very much in DCU’s favour.
Foley ducked in and side-footed home the game’s first goal. Minutes later the full forward added another, exchanging a lovely one-two with Lindsay Davey before beautifully chipping the keeper. Foley wasn’t finished yet, smashing home her third goal to make it 3-7 to 0-5 at the break.
No doubt with the half time criticism of their manager still reverberating in their ear’s Sligo started brightly, but it was DCU who were making it count on the scoreboard with Davey neatly dispatching their fourth major of the tie.
Credit to Sligo, they refused to throw in the towel and were rewarded when Jenny Higgins’ probing free bounced straight into the net. The visitor’s Deirdre Doherty attempted to spearhead their revival with a huge point and individual goal to reduce the deficit to 6 points.
IT’s Áine Gormley might regret not going for goal from a close-range free late on, but steadfast defending and a point blank stop from DCU’s goalkeeper meant the home side held out for a comfortable victory.
“It’s a rebuilding process,” manager Peter Clarke said after the game. “We’ve only got three O’Connor Cup winners left so we’ll go from here.” Clarke was no doubt delighted to see his side bounce back from last week’s 1-10 to 1-7 defeat at Queens.
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