Galway United will be in the draw for the semi-finals of the Club Orange Women’s FAI Cup after a gruelling extra-time win over Sligo Rovers at Moyne Villa’s grounds in Headford.<\/p>\n
All the goals came in extra-time in what was a real slog of a Connacht Derby as Emma Doherty struck twice to extend her record as United’s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n
The Bit O’Red’s Cara Jordan netted a consolation for Sligo four minutes from the end of this tireless affair. But the Tribeswomen held out to progress to the last four as their hopes of a double stay alive.<\/p>\n
Galway, the only unbeaten side in this year’s Women’s Premier Division, shaded this first half in terms of opportunities created but certainly did not dominate play.<\/p>\n
Former Sligo striker Doherty was on the end of the game’s first opening when she found herself in space down the United left. The Donegal woman, who spent two seasons at the Showgrounds, cut inside but her resulting shot from the angle was scooped away by Bonnie McKiernan in the Rovers nets.<\/p>\n
Rovers have twice reached the last four of this competition in this, their fifth year to enter. Any thoughts of progressing would have been far from their minds momentarily however, when Lucy Grant fired narrowly wide from a Remini Tillotson set piece was played short to the former Athlone Town woman after Amy Tierney was upended just outside the Sligo box.<\/p>\n
Gavin Hughes’ visitors improved as the half wore on, finding space deeper in the Galway half. But they struggled to breach a United back line who have the best defensive record in the league this term.<\/p>\n
Recent signing Olivia Rush got her lines wrong when she hit a wayward effort beyond Amanda McQuillan’s goal after impressive pressing from Rovers and her American compatriot Jordan.<\/p>\n
Galway boast a one hundred percent win record over their provincial rivals but all the momentum was with Sligo for the early part of the second period as Phil Trill’s charges struggled to leave their own half with the ball.<\/p>\n
Gracie Dunaway, another recent Sligo import from across the Atlantic played her part in teeing up Jordan whose effort was blocked by Tierney. While moments later, Anna McDaniel found herself in a decent position in front of goal, but her shot was tame and easy for McQuillan to claim.<\/p>\n
Both sides had chances after the other as this contest entered its last fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n
Tillotson’s header was cleared off the line by a Sligo foot, while Doherty went close with a header seconds later. While at the far end, Rovers’ Alice Lillie saw her shot fizz across the face of the United goal.<\/p>\n
Both Rovers’ McDaniel and Galway’s Doherty had opportunities at the end of normal time. While McKiernan had to play sweeper on occasion to clear the incoming danger as Galway failed to make the most of the space afforded to them behind that high Rovers line.<\/p>\n
Galway finally broke the deadlock in this one in the sixth minute of extra time when Doherty met Aiobheann Costello’s cross ahead of McKiernan who had committed to the ball. The Buncrana native nodding to an empty net for her eleventh goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Doherty thought she’d put this tie to bed three minutes from the end when she smashed a sumptuous first time full volley beyond McKiernan. But Jordan’s goal from the restart made the last few minutes a little less comfortable.<\/p>\n
Galway United: McQuillan, Costello (McKey, 125), Grant, Beletic, Tillotson, Cotter, Donnelly (Gleeson, 117), Griffin (Mullins, 63), Tierney (Meaney, 64), Doherty, Farrelly.<\/p>\n
Sligo Rovers: McKiernan, Hallinan (McGrory, 96), Doherty (Dionicio, 84), Jordan, Duffy, Dunaway (King, 68), Karolak, Hillyer (Mersereau, 67), Rush, LIllie, McDaniel (McIntyre, 106).<\/p>\n
Referee: Mark Patchell<\/p>\n
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Shelbourne were the first side to book their place in the semi-finals courtesy of a 4-1 win over Dublin rivals Bohemians in Dalymount Park.<\/p>\n
The visitors wasted no time in their trip across the city as Alex Kavanagh got them off the mark just 35 seconds into the game. Her audacious finish from outside the box curled into the top corner, and Shels never looked back.<\/p>\n
Olivia Damico made it 2-0 shortly after half-time with a sensational strike from just inside the box, flicking the ball over her head before volleying into the roof of the net.<\/p>\n
Pearl Slattery and Brianne Severns put the game to bed with two goals in two minutes before Hannah O’Brien got a consolation goal for the hosts.<\/p>\n
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Elsewhere, extra time was needed to separate Athlone Town and Shamrock Rovers in their meeting with the home side coming out 5-3 victors in a high-scoring thriller.<\/p>\n
The defending champions took a slender 1-0 advantage into the break courtesy of a Alexis Strickland finish from 12 yards out. Emily Corbet managed to equalise not long after the hour mark before the game flew through the gears in the final 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
Two quick fire goals from Maddison Gibson and Hannah Waesch looked destined to put Athlone through, but Rovers dragged it back courtesy of Ciara Milton and Therese Kinnevey, the latter scoring in the final minute of normal time.<\/p>\n
It didn’t take long for extra-time to hit the same tempo, with Athlone’s Isabel Ryan putting them back in front in the 96th minute, before Hazel Donegan’s goal in the second period saw Athlone through.<\/p>\n
“Great game for the neutral. I think when we went 3-1 up in normal time we got complacent. They’re a team that never gives up. We’ve seen that in recent weeks,” Athlone manager Lily Agg told RT\u00c9 Sport after the game.<\/p>\n
“We never waivered from the belief that we were going to get through to the next round and we deserved to win today.<\/p>\n
“They had momentum and going into extra-time, like you said, that’s a sucker punch to concede those goals and that’s something we need to learn from. We need to manage games better and that comes from experience, that comes from leaders and we had a conversation at the break about the second half and what is that game going to look like. It could have gone one of two ways<\/p>\n
“I had so much belief that we would step up and rise to the occasion and make sure the victory was ours.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galway United will be in the draw for the semi-finals of the Club Orange Women’s FAI Cup after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-579725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}