Shelbourne clobber Cork to reach Women's FAI Cup final

Shelbourne booked their place in the Sports Direct Women's FAI Cup final with an emphatic win over Cork City in the first of this weekends semi-finals.

Kate Mooney had opened the scoring before Noelle Murray added a brace, with Christie Gray and Megan Smyth-Lynch putting the icing on the cake with two stunning strikes each as the double-chasing hosts made it four wins over the Leesiders this season as they earned their place at the showpiece on 20 October.

The Rebel Army, although winless in their last six, had a confidence-boosting clean sheet against Wexford last week and tried their best to carry on their impressive defensive resolve into this as the dominant home side set their stall out from the first whistle.

Both Leah Doyle and Maggie Pierce looked threatening out wide, whilE Murray and Roma McLoughlin picked up dangerous pockets of space.

But as the half wore on, and with New Zealand stopper Una Foyle relatively untested, the visitors grew in confidence.

Colleen Kennedy was tireless on the righthand side and skipper Eva Mangan began to get on the ball more, having a powerful effort well blocked.

Just after the half hour mark the cat was almost thrown amongst the pigeons when Mangan played a delicious around-the-corner pass to Rebekah Cassin, who showed great pace to get in behind the Pearl Slattery-less Shels defence, but she dragged her shot agonisingly wide.

This served as a wake-up call to the home side as Gray went straight down the other end and teed up the in-form Mooney to open the scoring from close range.

Shels sensed blood and doubled their lead minutes later. Having had a penalty shout turned down seconds before, Murray was again brought down clumsily in the area as Freya de Mange came through the back of