Kildare placed firmly in the relegation mire as powerful Sligo show no mercy

Sligo 4-16

Lidl Ladies NFL Division 2 round five

Kildare's stay in Division 2 of the Ladies National Football League seems destined to come to an end this season after they shipped a heavy defeat to Sligo on Saturday afternoon to make it five losses on the trot for a new look Lilywhites side under Morgan O'Callaghan.

Stripped of a large contingent of last year's All-Ireland winning intermediate team, it was always going to be a tough task for the Lilywhites in an extremely competitive division, and the margins of victory have been widening on each occasion as the players struggle to get a rhythm going. They still have to play Westmeath and Clare, and though there is a prospect that Kildare can stay up with two wins from their final couple of games, it appears to be too steep a mountain to climb at this stage.

Sligo began on the front foot, and they opened the scoring in the second minute when the excellent Sarah Reynolds finished off a well worked team move by slotting the ball over. Kildare were always going to rely on the accuracy of Ellen Dowling to help them get a foothold in the game, and she showed up well early on. The Suncroft sharpshooter opened her account for the day in the third minute, but Sligo took control of the tie over the next 10 minutes.

Aoife Wosser had to be at her best to deny Stephanie O'Reilly when she blocked the forward's shot in the seventh minute, but Sligo soon found a way to the net when Ciara Gorman squared a ball to Sarah McMoreland and she rolled it in from close range.

Dowling responded with her second point of the game, but Sligo hit back in style once again, and it was the same player who found the net for the second time in nine minutes. McMoreland was played in behind the Lillies' defence by Gorman and she produced a fabulous finish to find the top corner of Wosser's net.

Despite being five points in arrears Kildare responded well. Dowling knocked over a free before the hard-working Róisín Byrne hit the target after barrelling through a couple of Sligo defenders.

The game took a see-saw nature over the next number of minutes as both sides scored three points apiece before the break in an entertaining passage of play. Gorman, O'Reilly and Lisa Casey all raised white flags for the visitors, while Kildare offered a response on each occasion through Dowling, Grace Clifford and Byrne, with the latter's score coming just before the break to leave the scores at 2-5 to 0-7 in favour of the Yeats County ladies.

Kildare looked good in the opening passages of the second half, and a couple of excellent points from Dowling either side of a converted Ciara Gorman free left the hosts trailing by just three points between the sides.

It was downhill from there however, and points from Gorman and McMoreland gave the initiative back to the Connacht side, and when Karen Maloney found the top corner of Wosser's net with a superb effort from 15 metres out to the left of the goal the writing was on the wall for Kildare as they fell eight points behind.

Gorman was exerting a sizable influence on proceedings by this stage, and she sixth point of the afternoon to stretch Sligo's lead, before Róisin Byrne offered some resistance with her third point, this time from a free.

It got little better than that however, and Mary Ann O'Kennedy's 53rd minute goal rubbed further salt in the wounds for Kildare as their challenge wilted in the final quarter. Róisín Byrne did manage to put a shade of respectability on the scoreline with a well-taken last minute goal from a free, but Sligo were way too far ahead at that stage for it to make a difference.

Scorers for Kildare: E Dowling 0-6(2f), R Byrne 1-3, G Clifford 0-1.

Scorers for Sligo: A Gorman 0-7(4f), S McMoreland 2-1, M O'Kennedy 1-1, K Maloney 1-0, S O'Reilly 0-2, B Byrne, D McGrath, L Casey, R Monaghan and S Reynolds 0-1 each

Kildare

A Wosser; J Mulligan, R Mernagh, R Corrigan(A Mulligan 57mins); S Kendrick, A Curley, M Curley; R Byrne, R Reidy; G Clifford, M Price, T Duggan; L Scully(E Connolly ht), E Dowling, O Kirwan(S Doheny 43mins).

Sligo

N Gormley; E Flanagan, G O'Loughlin, A Coleman(M McNamara 48mins); R Goodwin, E Codd, J Mulligan; B Byrne, S Reynolds; K Maloney, S O'Reilly, S McMoreland.