St Francis women’s team celebrate their Monty Baker Cup win over Home Farm
St Francis women secure their second trophy of the season
ST FRANCIS women’s team won the Monty Baker Cup last Saturday at the AUL Complex after picking up a totally dominant victory against Home Farm.
Kicking off at a somewhat unusual time at 11am, the game went Francis’s way throughout and they never looked to be overly troubled throughout the game. Manager Stuart Smith gave his thoughts on the event and the win for the club.
“It was well organised, they made the day special for all the teams.
‘I know my players have been in finals before and they were complimentary of how it was run this time around.
‘I haven’t experienced anything before with the ladies but the little things like water and drinks in the changing room for them makes it feel a little bit more special on the day.”
Francis had made it to the final after a semi final against Cabinteely, a game that many felt was between two of the most fancied sides in the cup competition and a rematch of their FAI Amateur Shield match up from last month which Francis also prevailed through.
Rachel McGrath scored a hattrick in the final, showing that she is truly someone who can be relied upon in big matches after scoring a brace to secure the FAI Amateur Shield back in August against Cabinteely and Shannon Coady scored a hattrick also after not being available for selection in the last final.
The team has four league games left in their season before breaking up over the winter and starting pre-season training again in January.
After initially hoping to just consolidate their place in the top flight this season they have gone above and beyond expectation winning two pieces of silverware in the process.
The club are already looking at future additions they can make to the squad looking at local players as well as those belonging to League of Ireland u20s teams.
“We’re ahead of our time regarding where the plan is for the senior ladies. We wanted to consolidate league position this year and we didn’t have silverware in our minds but look we took it when it came along.”
Some of them are in u20s football and maybe they won’t get signed for the first team or in college and don’t have the time to commit to a league off Ireland setup.
We want to try and show them that what we have in Francis is not far off a league of Ireland setup.
We’re training two, three times a week and do the V/O sessions with them.
They’ll be used to all that type of preparation work in the League of Ireland and they’ll come to us and think that we’re trying to do it right. That’s how we get girls over the line to sign for St Francis.”
