Saturday’s sensational win over Shelbourne was a special evening for Sligo Rovers’ Women’s National League side, but manager Steve Feeney isn’t getting carried away.
t was the sort of performance he’s always believed his side is capable of, but was probably not expecting it against a side of Shelbourne’s quality.
“Unreal,” Feeney said afterwards.
“It was all them, they were 2-0 down against the league champions, a team that are 7 or 8 points clear, or were.
“I don’t know (what happened). Something on the pitch happened, all of a sudden they were back in the game.
“There was no looking back. As the game went on, we got more and more confident.
“We caused them all sorts of problems. We were looking more solid, and thankfully we got three points.”
There’s been plenty of occasions this season when the Rovers boss has been left disappointed with results as he has felt his side are better than what they have shown on the day.
But not this time. Now, his players and everyone can see what they are capable of.
“More importantly, it shows the girls that they are able to win these games.
“It’s hard to keep telling girls that they’re good enough if they’re not getting results.
“A result like tonight can really make them realise that we are good enough to go and get results in this league and start to pick up more points.
“This could be huge for us, but we need to make sure that we go again next week.”
The Bit O’Red had the crowd behind them last Saturday, and it made a big difference for Rovers on the night.
And Feeney hopes that this can grow the interest in the WNL side and encourage bigger crowds at home games.
“It was brilliant. It was something we spoke about at half-time, you could tell the crowd were itching to get behind us, I think the girls gave a performance that justified it.
“I’m sure anyone that was watching it or anyone that’s there is going to be talking about it, it will increase interest and hopefully we’ll get another good crowd at home next time.”
Feeney handed a first start to new signing Amy Boyle-Carr who was outstanding, as was fellow Donegal player Emma Doherty who scored two of Rovers’ three goals on the night.
“Amy’s probably one of the first players I spoke to back in December and January but she had obviously committed to Donegal, but kept in contact.
“We were delighted to get her signed earlier in the week. We weren’t sure whether to throw her in straight away but I think her performance said it all.
“Before she even came here we knew Emma was a talent, it’s not the case of we’ve created her, Emma is outrageous.
“As good a finisher as she is, her attitude, her work-rate her want for the team is just unbelievable.
“She’s as good a centre-forward as in the league but obviously she’s playing in a team that are down at the bottom of the league so she’s probably not getting as many chances as a player in a top team would.”
Having watched the success of the men’s team earlier in the week in Europe, Feeney said his side felt inspired.
“There was 20 or 22 of us from the women’s team at the men’s game the other night and you couldn’t help but be inspired and want an occasion like that or an atmosphere like that.
“With the TV cameras here, and a good crowd, the girls saw it as a chance for them and they’ve stepped up to it. It’s been a great couple of weeks as well.”
Rovers take on Bohs on Saturday, August 13 in the cup, and Feeney says they will take confidence from last Saturday and hopefully rise to the occasion again.
“I think the fact we conceded late to Shels up in Tolka was playing on the minds in the last few minutes so to hold on was great. We’ve another massive game next week away to Bohs in the cup and you want to get through, we can take a lot of confidence from today.
“We’ve shown that we can rise to an occasion so hopefully we can rise to another one next week.”
There will be more interest now in Rovers after that game was televised live, and the manager was almost relieved that the game lived up to the hype.
It was a chance to showcase what they can do, and they certainly did that.
“The games on TG4 last year were kind of what really spiked my interest watching the games, you could see there’s plenty of ability and talent teams wise, and I’m delighted our team got the chance to show what they bring to the league because it would have been easy to just show the top two or top three teams.
“The facilities here are second to none, the game lived up to the hype, as someone said to me afterwards ‘if you’re going to be on TV, that’s the way to do it’.”
And now with one round of games left, Feeney hopes that his side can make The Showgrounds a tough place to come for the final round.
“It was something at the start of the year we spoke about, that anyone who came here to play us didn’t enjoy it.
“We’ve probably been a bit inconsistent with that in that we’ve got some really good performances in patches.
“We’ve a full round of games left in the league so we have to play everyone once.
“We want to take as many points as we can, especially at home.”
