‘It’s brilliant to be honest’ says EWFL boss Connolly

AS COVERED last week in The Echo, the EWFL representative team recently won the Angela Hearst Cup as they beat the side from the Waterford district leagues in the final with a massive 3-0 win.

The manager who guided the team to victory was none other than manager Greg Connolly of St John Bosco’s.

There was a plethora of local talent in the side also with Naoise Rutherford, Holly Rutherford, Maja Sewerynska, Marwa Ismael, Ella Gleeson and Nicole Smyth all playing for St Francis while Ella McGrath and Emma Gunning play for Peamount United.

Terenure Rangers player Kerri Duffy was also in the squad.

Connolly’s side had to overcome major adversity on their way to the final as they were defeated by Mayo in their first game of the tournament.

The side managed to qualify for the semi finals after receiving a walkover victory against Donegal who were unable to play the fixture.

This landed them in a rematch with Mayo however.

“I felt personally with the first Mayo game, anything that could go wrong did go wrong, we got a couple of injuries on the week.

‘We had 17 in the squad and by the Sunday we were down to 13 or 14 players. I still felt we were the better side but we were beaten 2-1.”

“The semi final we had a small squad but we were excellent.

‘We dominated from the first minute to the last. In fairness to Mayo they are a strong physical side.”

The EWFL would go on to win the whole competition after the victory against Waterford, the win was sweet for the side who would have been expected to go deep from the beginning.

Connolly himself has been involved in women’ s football for the last six or seven years and has also managed the St John Bosco U16 side for the last three.

He maintains that the sport is always growing and that it’s the place to be at the minute.

“It’s brilliant to be honest, I don’t think I’d go back to senior men’s football, I’ll be staying in the women’s game.

‘It’s just getting better and better all the time. It’s just a case of wanting to be a part of it.

‘They are doing all the right things in the women’s game now and hopefully that continues.

‘I’d love to play my part in it as well.”

“Huge difference in numbers from a few years ago.

‘There’s more people playing, more clubs with girls teams now.

‘It’s getting more and more popular. A big thing is that people are getting to see it more now with games getting shown on RTE, it’s getting bigger and bigger by the week.”