This time of year is always exciting in the women’s game.
Many major divisions around the world start to crank back into life following close-season breaks, and it will not be too long before the likes of the WSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, and Serie A Femminile are back entertaining fans on a weekly basis.
However, it is also a time when those leagues that have been running during the summer months enter the home straight, with the Republic of Ireland’s Women’s Premier Division one of those.
It is a league that always provides plenty of excitement and has especially done so this year, with there being just five regular rounds left to play and plenty still to sort out.
One of those is the destination of the league trophy, and it is almost certain to be one of Shelbourne Women or Athlone Town Ladies who will get their hands on it.
They entered last weekend level on points and have been trading blows for much of the campaign, meaning that their clash at Tolka Park was likely to be pivotal in the context of the title battle.
In the end, it was Athlone who secured all three points from what was an exhilarating encounter, and this tactical analysis will highlight what got them over the line and why Shelbourne still have plenty to be encouraged about despite failing to add to their points tally.
Shelbourne Women Vs Athlone Town Ladies Lineups
Shelbourne Women manager Eoin Wearen made just one change to his side’s starting lineup from the one that won comfortably at Cork City Women last time out.
Éabha O’Mahony was withdrawn and took her place among the substitutes, with Canadian forward Christie Gray moving in the opposite direction and starting at right wing-back.
Wearen also switched the starting formation, with Shelbourne going from a 3-4-2-1 to a 3-5-2 system.
That saw Hannah Healy partner Jemma Quinn in the forward line whilst Roma McLaughlin shifted from an inside forward role to a position in the central third.
Wearen’s Athlone Town Ladies counterpart Ciarán Kilduff made two changes to his own side, one of which was enforced as a result of star striker Casey Howe’s injury five minutes into last weekend’s dominant home victory against Sligo Rovers Women.
Cameroonian forward Brenda Ebika Tabe replaced the Northern Ireland attacker in that match and was handed a start in this one, whilst the other alteration saw Erica Burke drop to the bench and playmaker Chloe Singleton come back in, with Kerryanne Brown moving into a holding midfield position alongside captain Laurie Ryan.
Athlone Town Ladies Game Plan
For Athlone Town Ladies, getting a result was always going to be the priority, with a defeat to their title rivals at this stage of the campaign unthinkable.
Whilst they overachieved in that regard, with many expecting them to draw at best, their performance will be what Kilduff will have taken significant pleasure from, with his players delivering on his game plan and leaving everything out on the field.
However, it is important to note that much of their play was not novel.
Instead, it was simply a case of them putting into practice the same things that had made them such a difficult opponent throughout the campaign.
In particular, they demonstrated the same desire to be expansive in possession as they have in every game.
Those principles are the backbone of their tactics and have aided them in having a chance of winning their first-ever top-flight title.
Against Shelbourne Women, it proved to be an especially effective strategy to employ, with the home team’s wing-backs constantly pushing up the field and not tracking back quickly enough once the ball had been lost.
Gray was especially prone to this and, therefore, allowed Athlone to build down the left-hand side on several occasions.
Shelbourne perhaps recognised that this would happen, and the inclusion of Jess Gargan as the right-sided centre-back was perhaps designed to guard against this (as it has been all season), with her capable of playing at full-back and so having the ability to shut attacks down, but that didn’t always pay off for the home team.
On this occasion, the numbers that Athlone have poured forward in the shape of winger Madie Gibson, left-back Shauna Brennan and the aforementioned Burke (who had replaced Singleton in the first half after a nasty injury for the latter player) are too many for Shelbourne to handle, with the cross from Gibson coming under little pressure as a result.
Up until this point, Athlone always looked dangerous, but what let them down in the first half was their inability to execute the final pass, cross or shot on goal.
In this case, the delivery failed to find either Tabe or wide attacker Roisin Molloy inside the goal area, and so Shelbourne were let off.
This was not the only time the visitors got into promising areas and then failed to make their chances count.
Perhaps for that reason, Kilduff altered his side’s formation as the first half went on.
Burke’s arrival led to them moving away from the 4-2-3-1 setup that they had started out with and adopting a fluid 4-1-4-1 system instead.
That saw Brown move into a more attacking midfield role alongside Burke, whilst Ryan was left to screen the back line.
At the same time, Tabe was asked to access pockets of space further back and to not play on the shoulder of the Shelbourne back line as much as she had been, and it was that that allowed Athlone’s late first-half equaliser to come about.
With Tabe not being as aggressive in her positioning, the away side opened up more space and started to tempt their hosts into making riskier passes. The additional space also gave the forward a chance to build speed and momentum.
On this occasion, that allowed her to reach the ball first once Pearl Slattery had allowed Gray’s back pass to travel between her legs, with her opting to leave the ball for goalkeeper Amanda McQuillan to come out and claim.
However, it didn’t have the pace to reach McQuillan, and Slattery had not noticed Tabe’s run towards it.
As a result, the forward was able to get Athlone back into the match in very cheap circumstances.
It seems unlikely that this mistake would have been made if Tabe had started closer to Slattery, and so that shows how Athlone’s tactical tweak was key to them not only getting back into the match but going on to win it.
This is not to say that everything Athlone did well was in the offensive third, though.
Their defending was just as impressive and equally vital.
One player who had a really strong game was American centre-back Jesi Rossman, who was first to everything whenever Shelbourne looked dangerous and whose anticipation was central to the away team constantly breaking their attacks up.
In this case, she has read the intention of O’Mahony to find her fellow substitute Kate Mooney with a vertical pass and has made a clean interception to end the threat.
Those moments when they have been out of possession are when Athlone have looked susceptible this season, especially when they have been forced onto the back foot and have needed to cope under pressure.
This was evident in their opening match of the campaign, which ended in a 2-0 win for the visiting Galway United Women.
The way that they dealt with Shelbourne’s desire to play forward showed the level of improvement that has been made.
Therefore, whilst their attacking threat will be the subject of the headlines, their defensive work deserves just as much credit for them leaving Tolka Park with maximum points and with a lead in the Premier Division title race.
Shelbourne Women’s First Half Tactics
As mentioned at the beginning of the analysis, though, Shelbourne Women did not play badly, and there are many positives that they can take from their performance.
In particular, the fact that they never once sat back and settled for a point deserves plenty of plaudits because it would have been easy for them to do just that and to ensure that things at least remained equal at the top of the standings.
Playing in a passive manner is just not in their nature, though, and it was apparent from the outset that they were going for win or bust.
In the early stages, their desire to take the game to Athlone Town Ladies was clear.
They pressed intently from the front and looked to regain possession in promising areas of the field.
What made this so tricky for Athlone to manage at times was the fact that every Shelbourne player bought into this strategy, with them moving forward in turn and playing their part in making it work effectively.
In this case, Rossman is trying to evade Quinn’s clutches, and support has arrived ahead of her from Brown.
However, she, too, has a Shelbourne player for the company in the shape of McLaughlin.
The eventual pass towards Molloy on the other wing sees Alex Kavanagh close her down and force the ball out of play.
It was a sequence that really highlighted the determination that Shelbourne displayed in this match.
The fact that Athlone were under this amount of pressure for periods of the game was why they needed to be more clinical at the other end of the field.
Whenever they were in possession, Shelbourne demonstrated the same quality and intent.
They predominantly looked to play through their opponents with line-splitting passes and try to take them out of the game.
It was this that allowed them to dismantle DLR Waves so easily two league games ago, and it gave Athlone plenty to think about in this match, too.
This pass from Maggie Pierce dissected Brown and Ryan and reached the feet of Healy in an area from which she could have tried her luck in front of goal.
On this occasion, Athlone reacted quickly enough, and Ryan got back to dislodge the ball from Healy’s feet, but there was no doubting the intent in the hosts’ play, with them knowing that scoring first would be advantageous not only in this match but in the title race as a whole.
To that end, it perhaps comes as no surprise to learn that they had multiple ways of creating chances in their locker, with them making numerous ground passes but also taking a more direct approach at times.
This was where their outside centre-backs really came into the equation, with both Gargan and Keeva Keenan making runs up the field and frequenting the half-spaces, which gave Shelbourne layers when they were trying to build chances and which kept Athlone guessing as to where the eventual delivery would come from.
In this case, Keenan has the ball and is in enough space to pick out Quinn inside the goal area, and only another well-timed interception from Rossman snuffed the chance out.
However, this was certainly something else that Shelbourne benefitted from, allowing them to go in at the break level and with plenty to build on.
Shelbourne Women’s Second Half Changes
Wearen must have felt at half-time that his side had been restricted by their formation though, because Shelbourne Women changed to a more fluid, rotation-based game plan in the second half.
This was made possible by Healy being withdrawn after a quiet performance up until that point and midfielder Megan Smyth-Lynch being introduced.
This meant that Shelbourne had switched to a sole striker in Quinn and had brought another central third operator into the fray, and that had a really positive impact on their ability to test Athlone Town Ladies in different ways as the second half went on.
In particular, Smyth-Lynch’s ability to settle into the middle third allowed McLaughlin to get further forward, with her attempting to get between the Athlone players here rather than staying in front of them as she would have done in the first half.
On this occasion, this tweak enabled Shelbourne to put together a series of one-touch passes inside the goal area and take a shot at goal.
McLaughlin’s role in facilitating should not be underplayed.
It was her vision and movement that allowed the chance to come about, as well as her precision when moving the ball through the gaps, and there is no doubting that she posed an increased threat as the match went on for that reason.
However, there were others who really benefitted from this alternate system, with one being Kavanagh, who is at her best when operating in a box-to-box role and connecting different areas of the pitch together.
With McLaughlin pushing into those advanced spaces and Pierce focusing her efforts on shielding the back line, she had additional space to work with in the second half, and this graphic shows how much of the pitch she covered as the match went on.
There were slight nuances in what she offered in this outing: how far she moved in each direction, with her getting a little higher and dropping a little further back than she normally does.
That was likely as a result of Athlone’s own attacking threat and the need to maintain the pressure on their back line in order to facilitate the potential for mistakes, and that in itself highlights how adaptable she is and why she was so vital to them playing positively in defeat.
The other thing that assisted the implementation of this more free-flowing style of play was the introduction partway through the half of Mooney, with her replacing Quinn at the top of the pitch.
As these graphics show, Quinn was a constant presence in more advanced spaces and had plenty of touches of the ball inside the Athlone goal area, but Mooney only had one and instead opted to sit further back, positioning herself between the lines and assisting in build-up phases.
As a result, there was a greater reliance on others to make runs ahead of her and to offer a threat inside the final third, which is where the likes of McLaughlin and Kavanagh really came into their own.
Left wing-back Leah Doyle, too, made more offensive runs in the second half than she did in the first and was another to have a strong outing.
It was this ability to attack as a collective that allowed Shelbourne to keep creating problems.
Ultimately, they were very unfortunate to finish the match with nothing to show for their efforts.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this tactical analysis has looked in detail at the Women’s Premier Division clash between Shelbourne Women and Athlone Town Ladies, highlighting the tactics that both sides played with and the reasons that Athlone emerged with the win.
As has been clear throughout the analysis, both sides put on really strong displays, and it made for an enthralling top-of-the-table clash, with a lot of tactical chess on show as each tried to outthink the other and gain the upper hand.
Ultimately, though, what perhaps gave Athlone the edge was that they had the better overall package.
Both sides looked dangerous in attack, but the away team was marginally more secure at the back.
There is an argument that they wouldn’t have conceded the opening goal had it not come immediately after a long break to allow Singleton to receive medical attention.
Whilst it is just another three points for Athlone, it did feel like a monumental result in the title race.
Their fate is now firmly within their hands, while Shelbourne will need them to trip up to get back into contention.
There are other teams, too, who could still take advantage of any missteps made by either team, so both will need to keep a close eye on those behind them as well as each other.
Things are finely poised for what promises to be a fascinating fight to the finish.
Both teams will have a week away from the league next time out, with Shelbourne travelling to Shamrock Rovers Women and Athlone hosting Treaty United Women in the FAI Women’s Cup quarter-finals.
Their next Premier Division fixtures see the former then make the trip to Bohemians Women in two weeks’ time, whilst the latter will host Cork in early September.
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