Women's LOI: The key priorities for each club

Change has happened very fast for the SSE Airtricity Women's League of Ireland in recent years and the new season promises to be no different.

2023 saw the re-joining of Shamrock Rovers to the league with an immediate title challenge, Athlone Town won their first trophy in the FAI Cup, a new competition in the Avenir Cup brought a surprising winner in Galway United and Aine O’Gorman and Abbie Larkin historically became the first active players from the league to appear in a World Cup.

This year sees five of the 11 clubs with new managers with two more in their first full seasons. Those managers will be looking to bring their own ideas to push their sides forward.

So what might the priority for each manager be this season? We take a look.

Athlone Town – Bringing cup form to the league

Athlone have had great success in cup competitions in the last two years, winning nine games (including the President’s Cup and Avenir Cup) that helped earn a famous FAI Cup win in 2023. That’s a cup win rate of 75%. In the league last year, they won at a rate of just 55%.

Four of their five cup wins of 2023 came via penalties, a luxury they won’t have in the league. After going from two points behind first place in 2022 to 17 last year, Ciaran Kilduff will need to look to past cup form for inspiration.

Bohemians – Maintain form for a full season

As the season took a break last June, Bohs sat in fourth place and were just two points from second. But they returned a different side, going six without a win (with no goals scored in the first three) and only taking one further win. That was a one-goal home win over a Treaty United team who hadn’t won a game all year. The departure of Sarah Rowe back to Australia can’t have helped but the rest of the