Shelbourne begin title defence with crushing win over Cork

It's a new season but the same from Shelbourne as they opened their Women’s National League campaign with a thumping victory over Cork City at Tolka Park.

The champions picked themselves up from last week’s Presidents Cup defeat to Athlone Town with Megan Smyth-Lynch and Kayla Hamric both scoring twice, while Siobhan Killeen and debutant Rebecca Devereux got one each on the day they lifted the flag to mark their 2022 league title.

This was all done in front of a sizable home crowd, who witnessed a well-organised Cork go down to a Shelbourne unit that picked up exactly where they left off last year.

They Reds didn't look like a team at the start of the season, they were direct and almost scored inside the first ten minutes through Smyth-Lynch but her shot deflected inside the area and hit the crossbar.

It took some time for Shelbourne to work out how to make things happen in the final third as City were organised with a disciplined back three of Ciara McNamara, Heidi Mackin, and Daniele Burke.

Their work was complemented by goalkeeper Abby McCarthy, who pulled off an excellent string of saves to deny Smyth-Lynch on a number of occasions.

This all built up to Hamric picking out Killeen with a cross-field pass and she beat two defenders before finishing neatly across the face of goal.

City tried to get an instant equaliser and it almost paid off when Courtney Maguire spilled a cross from Eva Mangan and the loose ball went to Aoibhin Donnelly who had a close-range shot blocked by the Shelbourne defence.

As is the way in football, such an advance led to space at the back and Noelle Murray managed to find Smyth-Lynch. She then dinked the ball over the City goalkeeper and that doubled Shelbourne's lead in the final minutes of the first