Women’s FAI Cup final: Athlone Town 3 [Brady 23, 36, 49] Bohemians 2 [McEvoy 6; Brennan 75]
In advance of her team’s upcoming Nations League play-off against Belgium, Republic of Ireland head coach Carla Ward invited Athlone Town’s Kelly Brady to train with the squad. After watching the domestic game’s top scorer help herself to a hat-trick in Sunday’s Sports Direct FAI Cup final in Tallaght, sealing Athlone’s first ever league-and-cup double in the process, Ward might be tempted to upgrade the New York native’s invitation to a cap soon enough.
Mind you, Bohemians’ finishing would have caught Ward’s eye too, Alannah McEvoy and Aoibhe Brennan both producing peaches of goals from distance in their side’s first ever FAI Cup final. But, ultimately, it was the ever clinical Brady who decided the game in what was Athlone’s fourth final in as many years.
Athlone needed her to be at her sharpest too, after they went behind on just six minutes, McEvoy curling home from 25 yards after being set up by Hannah Healy, who had dispossessed Hannah Waesch on the left.
But between the 23rd and 48th minutes, it turned into the Brady show, the striker making hay from pinpoint Shauna Brennan and Madie Gibson crosses from the left wing, heading both past Rachael Kelly. And the second half had hardly kicked off when she made it 3-1. After a deflection from Gibson’s free-kick fell into her path, her shot squirmed under Kelly. That made her the first player to score a hat-trick in the final since Leanne Kiernan achieved the feat in 2016 in Shelbourne’s 5-0 win over Wexford Youths.
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She would have doubled her personal tally but for fine Kelly goalkeeping, last ditch-defending and a squandered chance that she scooped over the bar, but she should be content with her dress rehearsal in front of Ward, who sang her praises on TG4.
“I’ve obviously been very impressed with Kelly,” said Ward, “the way she moves in and around the box, her double movements – and she’s got some height when she lifts off.”
It’s six years since Brady, whose parents come from Monaghan and Galway, made her debut for the Irish under-19s, but she has made no secret of her burning ambition to make it into the senior-set-up. That progression won’t come easily, Ward again pointing to the gap in standards between the largely part-time league at home and the full-time ones where her squad earn their keep.
But she saw plenty of youthful talent with no end of potential on Sunday, including Brennan, a nominee for this season’s young player of the year award. She all but replicated McEvoy’s goal on 73 minutes to bring Bohs back in to the game, curling home a shot from the left edge of the box. Having been the only side to score twice against Athlone in the league all season, they did it again in the cup.
Considering they finished 20 points behind Athlone, there weren’t too many who gave them much hope of running the champions close, but that they did. They threw everything at them in the closing stages in search of an equaliser. Although Athlone looked like they were beginning to wilt, they held out to complete a nigh-on perfect season.
The attendance at the game was 3,608, about 500 up on last year but almost 2,000 below the record figure in Tallaght for a cup final, when Athlone lost to Shelbourne in 2022.
ATHLONE TOWN: Plaschko; K Brennan, Shine, McNally, S Brennan (Rice, 72); Slevin, Waesch, Mooney (Singleton, 80); Molloy (Ryan, 80), Brady, Gibson (capt).
BOHEMIANS: Kelly (capt); Power, McGovern, Murphy, Lovely (Malone, 86); Donnelly, Healy, A Brennan; McKevitt (O’Brien, 45), McEvoy (Kane, 89), Glennon (McCarn, 45).
Referee: Lucas Keating
