Murphy - We used the break wisely and reaped the rewards

On Sunday afternoon, Wexford Youths skipper Kylie Murphy bagged a brace to help her side advance to the Continental Tyres Women’s FAI Cup semi-final after a 4-2 victory over UCD Waves and after the game she spoke to Extratime.ie about her sides’ victory.

“Yeah” she said when asked if she was happy with her side’s performance. “I think we started off a bit slow, but after about ten or fifteen minutes we got into it and probably one of the best attacking play we’ve played this year.”

With Murphy opening her side’s tally from an Emma Hansberry corner, the captain feels set pieces were key to her side’s victory, but she was also disappointed to see her side conceded twice from dead ball situations.

“Definitely, I think we scored off four set pieces, three corners and a free-kick so can't complain. The Waves goals were from two set pieces and that's something we’re not happy with that something we have to work on a little bit better.”

After being forced to sit on the sidelines last weekend during the international break, the midfielder feels it was important to ensure they recorded a victory, as they continue a quest for a first FAI Cup crown.

“After having that week off, we trained hard over the last two weeks [Since the Kilkenny victory] and I think it showed today. [The FAI Cup] is one of the goals we set at the start of the season, to hopefully hit the final and lift the cup.”

With the FAI Cup now on hold for the next few weeks, Youths now turn their attention to their final WNL Shield game and Murphy is hoping to finish with a third victory and ensure her side top Group A when Cork travel to Ferrycarrig Park, before they travel to UCD Waves in the first round of fixtures in the Women’s National League.

“We’ll be hoping to come away with three points and top the group,” she said before joking with Extratime about playing UCD for a third time in six weeks. “We’ll be done with UCD before November, but looking forward to getting the league kicked off now.”

After failing to advance from their UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifying group, Murphy feels her side have learned a huge amount from the disappointment and they have continued to develop since the trip to Poland.

“We’ve learned a lot of things, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves as well and about the squad and the new additions are completely after upping the tempo like at training theirs girls killing each other trying to get into the squad.”