Down Ladies Football League Division Two
Loughinisland 1-5 Saul 5-16
Saul manager Ryan O’Gorman has sought to play down what appeared to be a one-sided result against Loughinisland last week. Following the second game of the league campaign, Ryan, who manages the team with Brendan Cunningham, explained that there were caveats to the result.
He said, “Last week Loughinisland were missing Aine Smith who is with the county. She started for Down yesterday against Tyrone (in the Ulster semi-final). We got a couple of goals late in the game which put a gloss on the scoreline. But it wasn’t as easy as the scoreline probably looked.”
The big win was important for Saul because they had lost their previous outing to Rostrevor, by 2-16 to 0-8. Ryan said, “The first week we got a rude awakening. A welcome to Division Two from Rostrevor. They were very strong. The first half was competitive. We missed a couple of goal chances. And then in the second half they just completely dominated. They scored 2-16 and Niamh Rice scored 2-12. We found it hard to stop her.”
“The big lesson was that you can’t get away with things that you would have got away with in Division Three and Four. Things like shot success and turnovers up in the attacking third. Rostrevor just punished us for those things. They moved the ball extremely fast and quick. I was very impressed with how they did that.”
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