Penalty calls costly for Peamount
BOTH Peamount United Women’s team captain Louise Corrigan and manager James O’Callaghan firmly believe they should have had at least one penalty in Sunday’s WFAI Cup decider.
The Newcastle side lost out 1-0 to Wexford Youths with Katrina Parrock scoring the decisive goal, but the National League Cup winners had several calls for a penalty that were waved away by the match official.
Peamount's Amber Barrett cannot hide her disappointment at the final whistle in Sunday's Women's FAI Cup Final
“Without sounding bitter, I honestly think the two penalty shouts were unfairly judged by the referees,” said Corrigan.
“One was a blatant bad tackle in the 94th minute and I think anyone who looks back at the replay will agree that the referee made a bad call and affected the outcome of the game.
“The standard needs to be a higher on their end in my eyes. But then again, you can’t count on referees to make the right decisions sometimes or depend on penos to win games.
“We should have taken our chances especially in the first half. The difference between us and Wexford on the day is that they took their chance when they had it, deservedly winning the game,” she admitted.
O’Callaghan too felt his side were hard done by when it came to those crucial pen-alty decisions, telling The Echo: “I thought we started well and dominated the first half hour, but then Wexford came back into and scored, kind of, against the run of play.
“I thought we did enough to get back into it and we had a couple of obviously penalty shouts. I thought I might have been biased, but when I looked back on them I felt they were penalties and on another day they might be given.
“The girls were disappointed. We were there to get the result, but they put in a good performance and it was great to see such strong support with the boys and girls section in the club coming together to get behind the team. I know the girls really appreciated that,” he said.
Still, both Corrigan and O’Callaghan remained upbeat about the progress this Peamount team has made over the past season with the latter saying: “For me, this season has been a success. Getting to the final of the National Cup and winning the League Cup – our first trophy in five years.
“It shows the team is progressing.
“There’s great strength in that dressing room and it will be good to now recharge the batteries and go again next season.”
Corrigan echoed these sentiments, adding: “It’s been a great season for Peamount United. We had extreme highs like winning the League Cup and some unfortunate lows as you seen Sunday, but that’s how football goes sometimes.
“Getting to the final was a huge achievement for myself and the whole team from the players to the management.”
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