These are encouraging times for Galway United, who host Cobh Ramblers in the SSE Airtricity League first division tomorrow evening.
Having stitched a four match winning sequence together, United will be eager to deliver another purposeful performance on home turf. Splendid goals from Ruairi Keating and Wilson Waweru ensured United defeated UCD on Friday.
United head coach Lisa Fallon was satisfied with how a rapidly improving United outfit controlled the contest in the capital. “I think the players know exactly what we are looking for from them,” Fallon says. “They are getting better at what we are asking them to do. They are a really good group and that focus was definitely there.
“We can definitely see it building in the last few weeks and while we look back at the UCD performance, it was a very good performance, we were pleased to get two very good goals, defensively I thought we were really solid.
“The work rate was excellent, the boys who came into the game knew exactly what was needed from them. It is about everybody knowing their roles, what is required, and that we do everything as a squad and as a team.
“We are starting to see that more and more. The focus turns to the next game, you can't keeping looking back at a performance, it is all about what we deliver now again on Friday night in Eamonn Deacy Park.”
Triumphs over Athlone Town, Cabinteely, Treaty United, and UCD has injected United’s season with confidence, but more importantly points. “I think that we were a little bit inconsistent at the start of the season,” Fallon says.
“With every new group it does take time for the new philosophies to bed down, exactly what we are looking for from the players, demanding that consistency and getting that consistently is a challenge. It is something that does take a little bit of time, but the players are working so, so hard, they really are, they are a great bunch.
“What we are seeing in training we are starting to see coming out in the games and it is great. You can see them gelling as a group, it is starting to come together.
“There is loads more work to do, while the results have been pleasing in this division you just can't take the foot off the pedal at all because any team can beat any other team on any given evening as we have seen. That is going to continue all the way until the end of the season. So our focus is very much now on Cobh Ramblers.”
Fallon acknowledges that momentum is crucial in sport. “It is very important, but it takes a lot of work to generate it,” she replies.
“Momentum is a funny thing because it can be a negative momentum and a positive momentum. When you have one or the other, one you have to break and the other one you have to continue. It is a challenge, but it is very important in terms of confidence and belief.
“When the players start to feel the work they are doing is bearing fruit winning is a habit, but it is about understanding what it takes to win. It is easy to say to go out to win a game, but to win a game, particularly in a division like this, but at all levels of the game.
“You have to have respect for what it actually takes to win a game. For me that very much comes from training, the work you do during the week in training, that is what will prepare you for your game.
“Momentum is a very important thing, it is great when you have it, but the key thing about it is to keep it when you have it when it is a positive momentum.
“That comes from the day to day stuff - the right attitude, the right work ethic, being prepared properly, and being able to really focus and perform at training as well as performing in a game.”
