McQuillan pleased as Shels record home win

On Wednesday evening, Shelbourne Ladies recorded their first victory since their merger with Raheny United, when they defeated Peamount United 5-1 at Morton Stadium and after the game Shels manager Casey McQuillan spoke to Extratime.ie about his side’s performance.

“We tried a few things tonight and they didn't work, but you can see the signs that we’re working on stuff in training the link up play, players that would normally take balls on and had shots were trying to put other players in [on goal] - it’s stuff we’ve been working on to try make us more dynamic on the pitch, there was signs of that out there Dearbhaile Beirne scored two great goals and it's great to see her playing in the National league and getting two goals like that. We gave a few debuts as well tonight, so that was all positive.”

Wednesday evening also marked a first start for Amanda McQuillan, the Ireland underage international who has been the understudy to Ireland international Niamh Reid-Burke and Casey was happy how his goalkeeper performed between the posts.

“It’s hard to believe that her first one, she’s with us over a year, but she is playing behind Niamh Reid-Burke, Niamh has brought her on no end and you can see in the game tonight she was quite confident for somebody making their debut in the National, she dealt with nearly everything the way she should.”

After spending large period of the previous season out of the starting XI for Raheny United, both Niamh Barnes and Megan Lynch have returned to McQuillan’s starting line-up and the Shels boss is delighted that despite Shelbourne having huge strength in depth the two players have continued to work hard and he also praised Barnes for her strong displays in the previous two outings.

“They are working hard, Niamh has been working particularly hard, as has Megan and both have a lot to offer the team, but we have a big squad and we’ll have to see how the season goes, but Niamh done very well and she also done very well up in Galway [In Round 1 of the WNL Shield]. You want players working hard and competition for places.”

Katie McCabe left the pitch in the opening minutes of the second half and Casey revealed that the Ireland forward who played ninety minutes on Monday evening against Finland at Tallaght Stadium was taken off as an injury precaution with his side in control of the game.

“She’s carrying a little bit of a groin strain so we thought better to keep her off the pitch at that stage of the game, no disrespect to Peamount, but we were 4-0 up and you should be able to see out a 4-0 lead so it was a bit precautionary as well and we’ll get her treated and hopefully get her back right for when we’re playing Castlebar.”

With the recent international break, many sides would have complained that it broke their momentum having players leave their squad to represent their country, but the Shels boss feels that the break allowed his coaching staff the opportunity to work with certain player to develop key aspects of their game.

“No, it actually worked quite well for us in a strange way because we had sessions with nine/ten players that we were able to focus on areas that they needed to improve their game, so the girls, were actually getting extra training while the girls were away and I think it worked pretty well and think the girls enjoyed it.”

A rearranged game can sometimes hinder sides as it adds to a fixture congestion, however, Wednesday’s game with Peamount was an important fixture, with this weekend’s Women’s FAI Cup Quarter-final game called off due to Kilmallock failing to field a team, it would have been a month between games for the Red Pandas.

“It was important we got the game on tonight, it’s a bit stop start at the minute, but listen I think the idea of the shield for the first round of games is a good idea because we use it to get player in and get them game time.”