It turned into a deeply frustrating Saturday afternoon at Tolka Park for Galway WFC as Stephen Lally's brave outfit exited the FAI Cup at the semi-final stage following a defeat against Shelbourne.
Noelle Murray's delightful opening period goal divided the teams as Galway produced another defiant display.
Proud of his improving squad of players, manager Lally reckoned Galway WFC were beginning to cause Shels serious problems when Julie Ann Russell was harshly dismissed for two controversial yellow card offences in the second half.
"I knew they would keep going, Julie Ann would have been huge in that last half hour," Lally says. "She is one of our gifted players that we needed on the pitch, at that particular time. She would have made an awful difference, down to 10 players we still kept going."
Even with 10 players Lally made tactical tweaks moving influential captain Savannah McCarthy into the middle of the park. "We had chances, they only had one real chance after we took a gamble by pushing Sav into midfield, we put Kate Slevin on to give us a bit of creativity," Lally adds. "Kate had an effort taken off the line and Emma Starr forced a good save from the keeper. We had as many chances as them really."
Disappointed with how Galway WFC commenced the contest, Lally felt that his team adapted after the restart.
"We didn't perform in the first half like we can, that was down to us as a team," he says. "We can accept that, and we can accept it was a goal worthy of winning any game, but we had a good chat at half-time.
"We felt we sorted out the problems, what we were trying to get across to them during the first half. We came out a completely different side in the second half. We were getting the better of them, we knew we would stay going."
In the closing stages the visitors' fashioned opportunities, but Shels, who featured former Galway WFC captain Shauna Fox, advanced to next month's decider against Wexford Youths.
