Roche "absolute gold-dust" as Peas clinch WNL

The inaugural Bus Éireann’s Womens National League came to a conclusion today, as Peamount United secured the title with a fine 1-0 win over Shamrock Rovers in Greenogue. Extratime.iecaught up with some of the players after the game today, and there was no hiding their joy with their ear-to-ear grins! 

We first asked player-of-the match Grace Murray how do it feel to get the three points and be crowned champions.

“Great! End of a long season, but it’s brilliant we have the win now. Very happy with the three points. I think we made it hard for ourselves to be honest. It was all boosted up at the start. First half, we didn’t get going, then second half we kind knew there was only 45 minutes left for the season so it was boot in!”

While Peamount weren’t able to repeat their recent goalscoring exploits to the same level, there were many good performances throughout the team. When asked how she felt about her own individual starring performance, a modest Murray was keen to pay tribute to her teammates.

“Oh ya excellent, I think it’s a whole team effort to be honest. It starts off with the girls up top and then Linda done really well - she pulled off some great saves.”

Captain Louise Quinn was again a rock at the back for Peamount today, and come final whistle she was evidently a proud of the achievement when we asked her how she felt.

“Feeling really really good. Been a long, long, long season, ups and downs, but we’re so glad that the day is here and so glad that we could get the trophy at our own ground as well. Makes it all the better.”

Speaking on the game itself, Quinn wasn’t hiding the fact that even though a draw would have sufficed, it was the victory that the Peas were after.

“We were sticking to our game plan, but we just weren’t finishing our chances. We were always going to go for the win. We would have been disappointed with a draw to be honest. Just today we didn’t put away our chances, but at least we put away that one and held onto the win and played quite well as well throughout the game.”

Striker Stephanie Roche finished the season as she had played it, with a goalscoring performance, and captain Quinn was in no doubt as to the part Roche had played in Peamount’s title winning season.

“She’s been absolute gold-dust to us. She’s brilliant - always popping away the goals .We can always rely on her, even if we’re not having the best performance you know Steph will stand up and take charge and get a goal, and then we’ll all help her around that and hopefully get some ourselves.”

Speaking to Roche herself, we asked her how it felt for her to be champions, and about scoring the goal that clinched the title for Peamount.

“Great! It’s great to be back in the Champion’s League again too, hopefully maybe we can go one step better this year.”

“It was a good match. In fairness to them they gave us a good game. If we’re honest we didn’t play great ourselves. All we needed was a draw, we obviously wanted to finish on a win. We done well, I think we deserved it overall this season. It’s great to win the game, and obviously to score the goal. It’s always good as a striker to score a goal!”

There will be plenty celebrations tonight in Greenogue, but with a cup final on the horizon there won’t be too much time to celebrate just yet.

“We’re having something tonight in the club house so we’ll have a few but we’ll be training this week and then back in properly next week [for the final].”