O'Donovan happy with more mature Cork performances

Central midfielder Sarah O’Donovan has expressed the opinion Cork Women’s FC are a more mature proposition this term and the performances of the side in their opening two league encounters are testament to that theory.

Cork defeated Shamrock Rovers on the opening day 2-1 at Turner’s Cross but lost 3-1 to Raheny United at Morton Stadium last Sunday.

However, O’Donovan believes, that with a season under their belts, the core group of players within the squad in particular are maturing into a formidable unit while the newer recruits and those that will join up with the squad when the CWSSL Senior League finishes this week will enhance competition for starting spots.

“The players that were also involved last season travelled to Dublin aware of how good Raheny would be. We were under no illusions about that.

“But there was a real focus in the dressing room beforehand because this is now a much more mature outfit that is going up against these teams this season.

“And with the local leagues finishing up we will be much stronger too in the coming weeks because hopefully the likes of Mary Barrett, Clare Shine, Ciara O’Connell, whose international central defensive experience will make up for the loss of Marie Curtin, and Amy O’Connor among others will add to the squad,” she stated.

O’Donovan’s belief that the squad is more mature is correct based on how they reacted to trailing to Rebecca Creagh’s two goals in the opening nine minutes in the capital.

Last season when Cork conceded, as O’Donovan suggested from “defensive errors” the Leesiders had a tendency to crumble.

However, on this occasion they displayed the maturity O’Donovan speaks of by engineering Denise O’Sullivan’s goal to halve the deficit nine minutes later but were then denied, what should have been, a penalty in her opinion to equalise before conceding the third goal.

“We played very well on Sunday. But after Denise’s goal had gotten us back into the game we also should have gotten a penalty.

“The referee (Rhona Daly) had given them a penalty after two minutes of the match when Katie McCabe went down but when the game was at 2-1 Vicky McMahon was taken down the same way but we didn’t get any penalty and that could have changed the whole game. It was a stone-wall penalty,” she stated.

On a personal level, O’Donovan is delighted to have earned her place in the starting 11 this term.

The former international has a wealth of experience to bring to the table for Cork and her presence in central midfield is of vital importance given the winning mentality she has built up over the years in this and other codes.

“Basically I am playing in the role Sylvia Gee (now with DLR Waves) played in last season and from watching her I know what to expect in that role.

“The fact that there is only one sub for every game has taken the pressure off in one sense because there was nearly 10 players sitting on the bench last season with everybody looking over their shoulder so you can express yourself a bit more.

“But at the same time I can’t understand how, as a Cork team, we are struggling for numbers of players who want to play.

“Our home games are at Turner’s Cross and away games also at some of the best venues in the country so I can’t get my head around why players wouldn’t want to play, what essentially is League of Ireland football.

“But hopefully that will change,” she added.