Trinity 7
IT Tallaght 0
Trinity Women’s Soccer got their intervarsity season back on track with a 7-0 drubbing of IT Tallaght in College Park this morning. The match was the second of Trinity Women’s Soccer’s Colleges and Universities Football League (CUFL) and their first home tie of the season.
Both teams were aiming to bounce back from opening day defeats: Trinity lost 2-1 at Maynooth, while Tallaght were on the wrong end of a 4-0 thrashing at the hands of UCD. Both sides had promising attacks in the early moments that got lost in translation in the final pass. Trinity, with the wind behind them in the first half, failed to capitalise on a potential overlap early on but almost redeemed themselves when striker Claire Nolan had a clear shot at goal that curled wide.
Trinity controlled territory in the early stages while Tallaght struggled to advance from their own half. Both team captain, Áine Tucker, and Nolan displayed impressive chemistry as they had not one but two shots on target before the Tallaght keeper cleared the danger.
An injury to a Tallaght player gave both teams the opportunity to regroup. After the stoppage, Trinity attacked again and a promising cross by Nolan forced the first corner of the contest. The ensuing corner caused a brief moment of panic for the Tallaght defence as the initial punch by the keeper fell into the six-yard box before she gathered it.
Nolan continued to cause problems for the visitors’ back line as she beat several defenders before her inside pass to Tucker was blasted wide. A clever cross-field pass from Tucker put Tara Coleman through on goal but her shot was well saved by the Tallaght keeper. As both sides were permitted to use unlimited substitutes, Tucker was replaced by Evelyn Hennigan at the half-hour mark.
Nolan’s diligence paid off as she found the net on the 33rd minute with a low shot into the bottom right-hand corner. The home side continued to threaten Tallaght for the remainder of the half. Trinity probably felt they should have been up by more at the interval. The away side, however, had serious questions to address regarding their spotty first-half defending.
Trinity began the second half as they ended the first, and it did not take long for them to double their lead following the interval, when Coleman found the back of the net in the 47th minute. A sensational effort by Nolan soon increased the lead to 3-0.
Tallaght’s defensive woes of the first half reappeared as they consistently struggled to penetrate Trinity’s half of the pitch. A promising attack was halted by Trinity’s dominant defence, led by Clíodhna Ní Shé, and Coleman scored on the counter-attack to make it 4-0 on 58 minutes. Evelyn Hennigan made it 5-0 just three minutes later.
Trinity was now scoring for fun at this point – two minutes later, goal number six came from Coleman, who completed her hat-trick with a curled shot from outside the box. The seventh goal from Jennifer Hubner closed the contest and the referee blew the whistle soon after.
Speaking to Trinity News, team captain Áine Tucker stressed the importance of a serious performance as the team gears up for several crucial fixtures in the upcoming weeks: “We’re delighted with the result today. After last week, we needed a big win to set us up for a final league match against UCD. We have our intervarsity qualifier in two weeks, so this big win will send us into that match with a big boost of confidence.”
She continued: “We were able to put on all of our subs and move people’s positions, which really showed the depth of the team we have this year.” Today’s dominant display came of no surprise to the captain: “We were expecting to be dominant today. We should’ve had more goals in the first half, but the half-time talk we had changed our energy and well, it paid off.”
Trinity’s next match in the CUFL is at UCD on November 14.
