12 MONTHS AGO, KATIE MCCABE’S thunderous free-kick lit up the Women’s FAI Cup final at the Aviva Stadium as Raheny United claimed a remarkable three-in-a-row in the competition.
The strike, an unstoppable drive from 35 yards, was witnessed first-hand by a couple of thousand people and shown live around the country on RTÉ for the second year running.
The decision to reschedule the women’s showcase and play it at Lansdowne Road directly before the men’s equivalent in 2013 was made in an effort to give the game a bigger platform.
Tomorrow afternoon, Shelbourne and Wexford Youths will line out at Ireland’s national stadium (12.30pm) three hours before Dundalk and Cork City face off on the same pitch.
And while Shels manager Casey McQuillan agrees that it is a step in the right direction, he maintains it is the responsibility of the media to give women’s football the coverage it deserves.
“It’s a positive move but you won’t see the fruits of it unless we see another wondergoal being scored or something like that,” McQuillan told The42 this week.
“People are very slow to change their attitude towards women’s sports. I’d love it to change faster but it is happening slowly.
“In fairness to the FAI, they are putting the structures in place So it has to be seen as a positive.
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great having 2,000 people in a stadium this size but at the end of the day you have to look at these things long term.
“We need to cover it more for a start,” he adds. “They say people don’t watch it, but people don’t watch it because they don’t know enough about it and it is not being forced down their throats.
Let’s be honest, the Premier League is forced down their throats and that is why the League of Ireland suffers because the media has a big part to play.
“The FAI can put in place structures, we can provide the quality on the pitch but it is the media who need to get the finger out and start pushing these things.
“Those wondergoals are there week-in week-out and people need to see them. Claire Shine, who is playing over in Scotland now, was scoring them on a weekly basis when she was playing for us.
“Katie McCabe does the same, Noelle Murray has bundles of skill, and that’s just my team. The other teams have the same quality.
“I don’t mean photographs of the players, we need the goals. And it’s okay me videoing them, but that’s not the quality you want to be putting out.
“You would have to have little segments on television or a women’s football show or something like that. I don’t know the answers, it’s not my area but I do know the power of media is huge.”
In charge of a hugely-successful Raheny side for the past couple of years, McQuillan and his girls had to deal with some uprooting in the close season as the 2013 Women’s National League champions and three-time FAI Cup winners took the decision to merge with Shelbourne.
“Nearly all the Raheny players made the move over so it hasn’t been too strange, but we’ve mixed really well,” explains midfielder Rachel Graham.
“The biggest change was the new players coming in from underage, who are all really good players. They are biting at our heels for spots so there is in-house competition.”
That “in-house competition” was ranked up tto a whole new level when Shels seniors had the unique experience of being drawn against their own U18s side at the semi-final stage — a game they won 4-0.
“It was a double-edged sword,” says McQuillan. “From the club’s point of view, we were going to be represented in the Aviva Stadium. The downside was that these players train with us as well and they are all potentially first teamers.
“You have to go out with players that you train with and be that extra bit competitive. It’s a bit surreal.
“The other side is that there are plenty of people who would have jumped on the bandwagon and criticised the first team players and the manager if we had lost. If they weren’t questioning it, then I would been doing it in my own head.
“Those were the little things that made it a little bit different to a normal game. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
“The scoreline didn’t quite reflect how good the girls played. It was played in good spirit, no friends, and the girls who didn’t win came off the pitch knowing it was experience gained.”
Graham adds: “We were shouting ‘come on Shels’ and they were doing the same so it was strange.
“We took the game as seriously as any other game and in the end we were a bit too strong for them but they put it up to us and it was probably one of our toughest games all season.
“It’s good for us to have that quality behind us.”
The new league campaign is just two weeks old, but Shelbourne could hardly have asked for a better start, scoring nine goals in each of their first two matches and conceded just one.
That said, their manager is well aware that the tempo will be significantly faster in Sunday’s encounter.
“We’re up against Wexford, who are a totally different team to the ones we’ve played this season,” he says.
“The wins have been good for team spirit but we will see if it carries into the weekend or whether we need a few more games to get us going.
Wexford have the benefit of playing quality opposition in the Champions League but hopefully a little bit of that has worn off.”
While talented pair Megan Lynch and Sophie Watters are unavailable due to their participation for the U18s, another key player could also be set to miss out.
McCabe, one of Shelbourne’s main attacking threats, picked up an injury in Ireland’s recent 2-1 win away to Portugal and is a major doubt.
“She’s about 50-50 at the moment,” says McQuillan. “We will keep our fingers crossed because there is no point playing games about someone like Katie. She’s a big part of the puzzle.
“If she doesn’t play, it might be someone else’s chance to become a star. Let’s not forget, Katie has been playing football for a long time and there are a couple of girls behind her.
“Maybe this is the environment to step forward and say ‘I’m a superstar’. That’s what the competition is for — to make dreams come true.”
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