WNL Shield Preview: Castlebar Celtic Women -v- Galway WFC

CASTLEBAR CELTIC

Castlebar Celtic head into Saturday’s Connacht derby against Galway after suffering defeat in their opening Shield fixture when they travelled to Dublin to play Peamount United.

Despite suffering defeat against Peamount, Castlebar will be hoping they can improve on some on their mistakes from last weekend and Catherine Hyndman told Extratime.ie that last weekend, her side gave debuts to the majority of their squad.

“It's never easy to start your campaign off with a defeat, but we've looked at where our weaknesses were at the weekend and have been working on them in training.

“If you look at our players from the game you'll find that eight of them made their WNL debuts, and eight of them were also under the age of 19 - for the girls to be able step up and put up and contest inspires great assurance and determination not only in them as players but for the squad going forward.”

With Saturday’s clash being the first of at least four meetings between the sides, the Down native is excited to welcome her rivals to Celtic Park, but she is also aware Galway have had a positive start to the new campaign.

“Personally, I can't wait for our first home game this weekend. Celtic Park always has a great atmosphere to play in, and what better team to host than our local derby in the WNL, Galway. We expect Galway to come at us and try to continue their good run of form, but Celtic has been known to thrive in front of a home crowd and we'll hold our own.”

With an international period fast approaching, Hyndman has been named in the Northern Ireland squad for their upcoming friendly and when asked if she would be ‘taking it easy’ on Saturday to prevent injury, she said she will continue to play her normal game as if she went easy it would increase her risk of injury.

“Fortunately, Northern Ireland’s first qualifier is next month, although I’m delighted to have been called up for a friendly next week. I will of course continue to play the way I always have, I believe that if you go softly into, or pull out of, a challenge you are more likely to get injured than the latter.”

GALWAY WFC

Galway head into this weekend’s clash with Castlebar on the back of an opening weekend draw against Shelbourne Ladies at home. A Gertie Dowd goal had seen Galway take an early advantage in the group B clash before Shels skipper Pearl Slattery equalised after the half-time break.

Galway keeper Tina Hughes Extratime.ie both teams can be happy with a point and playing very well against one of the country’s top side’s will help with Galway’s continued development.

“If you look back on the game both teams have to be happy with the point as at times both defences and keepers were under pressure. Shels are a serious outfit with exceptional players and we're happy that we are building a system to allow us to go toe to toe with the best teams in the league. Hopefully the next time we meet we'll get all 3 points.”

As the League continues to develop, Hughes feels that with the addition of a Strength and Conditioning coach along with some new young players have given her side lots of new confidence and the younger players will continue to improve the more games they play.

“We have had an excellent pre-season and a lot of the credit must go to Susie Cunningham or strength and conditioning coach. We realised last year that we needed to up our training in order to get results and thankfully everyone in the squad has bought into this idea.

“Don has done an excellent job of recruiting new players to the squad. Gertie Dowd is a big addition and offers us an attacking options which can be seen by the hattrick she scored in the cup game. We were a very young team last year and hopefully the experience gained will drive is forward this year.”

Despite Castlebar being a side in transition, the goalkeeper feels that no matter what side they put out on Saturday there will be a real derby atmosphere and she is hoping her side can continue their strong start with three points at Celtic Park.

“Every time we play Castlebar there is a real derby atmosphere with the results reflecting this with nothing between the sides last season. There is tremendous work being done in Castlebar in terms of recruiting players so I'm sure whatever 11 take the field against us will be ready for action. We've had a great start of the year and hopefully we can continue to keep getting positive results.”

MATCH STATS

Castlebar’s Dahanna Feeney scored two free kicks in her sides 4-2 defeat to Peamount, while Gertie Dowd has also scored a hattrick in her side’s WFAI Cup victory over St Catherine's.

In the side three league meetings last season, both sides recorded a victory apiece with one draw.