Women's NI Premiership Review: An exhilarating season with Reds crowned worthy winners
Lauren McCann
As the champagne and confetti rained down on Solitude and the Cliftonville Ladies squad, almost as hard as the torrential rainfall itself in North Belfast, the curtain was drawn on another remarkable Women’s Premiership season.
It was a historic campaign for many reasons. This was the first Premiership season to feature eight teams, with Lisburn Ladies and Mid Ulster joining the already established six of Cliftonville, Glentoran, Linfield, Crusaders, Sion Swifts and Derry City to make it more competitive.
It was the first season to have no relegation, something which Derry City will have been mightily relieved at (more on that later) to allow the two new teams to settle into life in the topflight.
It was the first campaign to have a ‘split’ format introduced, with the top four and bottom four playing each other once at the end of the regular season to add excitement and again allow teams to be more competitive in playing those sides of a similar level to them.
Cliftonville Ladies won the league for the first time in their history and will now play in the Champions League.
It was also the first season which had to factor in a mid-season break due to Northern Ireland’s European Championship campaign.
With so many firsts wrapped into one season it was fitting that Cliftonville Ladies would be the winners of the domestic league for the first time in their history.
The Reds managed to secure the title with a game to spare, avoiding a repeat of last year’s dramatic final day ‘winner takes all game’ between them and Glentoran.
They were forced to win the hard way, with Vicky Carleton scoring late in the game against rivals Crusaders to give Cliftonville all three points which made them champions.
It was a fitting result for the Reds, who were undoubtedly the best team in the country this year, winning all but two of their league games, with both those defeats coming against Glentoran, the second of which came on the final day of the season when they had already been crowned champions.
They have been building towards a league title ever since the new management came into the club in 2019 and through improved coaching, excellent recruitment and a clearly defined style of play they have reaped the rewards and brought a first ever league title to Solitude, as well as the chance to play in the Champions League, the grandest club competition, for the first time in their history.
It was a title win which would have meant a lot to everyone at the club, but particularly stalwarts Megan Moran and Marissa Callaghan, who have stuck by the club through thick and thin.
The Reds finally managed to end Glentoran’s recent domestic dominance in the league, but the East Belfast giants were able to console themselves by picking up the Irish Cup for a fourth season running as well as the County Antrim Cup for a third campaign in a row.
They simply dropped too many points against teams they managed to find a way to win against last season, and in such a short season and in a two-horse race you have to be pretty much flawless against all other sides to win this league.
There is no doubt that Glentoran will strengthen ahead of next season and like Cliftonville last year, will aim to channel that hurt positively to retake their crown.
It was an up and down year for both Crusaders and Linfield, who have relatively young squads with bags of potential, but who struggle to find consistency in grinding out results.
Crusaders will probably be the happier of the two with their seasons, having finished third and pushed the top two hard in the multiple encounters in the league season.
Linfield, meanwhile, continue to put their faith in youth players, with the likes of Keri Halliday, Abi Sweetlove and Sienna Leckey all impressing for the Blues throughout the campaign at various stages.
Yet, there is still a huge gulf in class and experience between them and the top two, as exhibited particularly in their early season encounters against both Cliftonville and Glentoran. They will continue to strive to bridge that gap but will know that they are still far behind the top two at the moment.
It was an uncharacteristically poor league season for Sion Swifts, whose years of punching above their weight and mixing it with the bigger sides was halted this year as they slipped into the bottom half after finding it difficult to recruit players.
They will be another team keen to make amends next year, although they did live up to their billing as a team who enjoys a good cup run, as they were losing Irish Cup finalists whilst also managing to win the League Cup in June, only the club’s second ever major honour.
It was a solid start to life in the Premiership for Lisburn, who won their last three league games and finished sixth, well clear of Mid Ulster and Derry below them. It is even more commendable given they did so with many of the players who got them promoted in the first place, who had no previous topflight experience.
The task now will be to strengthen well in the off season to ensure the dreaded second season syndrome doesn’t bite them and see them make a quick return to the Championship.
Mid Ulster had a much more difficult first season in the topflight, which was to be expected as they too didn’t do much business in the transfer window and so were reliant on the players who got them promoted.
They finished a distant ten points behind Lisburn and won just two games all season, so they will be aiming to bridge the gap and pick up a few more points from the sides around them along the way if they stand any chance of surviving next term.
The Women’s Premiership will expand again next year to 10 teams with Larne and Ballymena earning promotion from the Championship.
One team who will be delighted to see the back of the 2022 campaign is Derry City, who had an abysmal record. They failed to win any of their seventeen games, picked up just three points all season and finished with a goal difference of -67, whilst also going through three managers.
The writing should have been on the wall when their first manager Kevin McLaughlin walked out just days before the start of the season.
Their mid-season arrivals failed to have the desired impact and the Candystripes must address the structures in place on and off the field at the club if they harness any hope of remaining a Premiership side.
The teams near the bottom end of the table will be wary given the quality of the two highly ambitious sides joining them in the division next year.
Both Larne and Ballymena are backed by their men’s sides and will not be there just to make up the numbers. They will want to challenge mid table clubs to begin with, before pushing higher, as their meetings with Premiership sides in recent years have shown they are certainly capable of challenging the established sides. This is even before they strengthen further ahead of their maiden campaigns in the topflight.
If this year was a historic one for the Women’s Premiership, next year is set to be even more monumental as the league is set to turn professional, which along with the addition of two more teams and the reintroduction of relegation, will only enhance the quality and competitiveness on show.
There is plenty of work for all 10 clubs to be doing in the off season to prepare for this switch. They have plenty of time to do so between now and April, but many fans are eagerly counting down the days already, with this season having whetted the appetite for a bountiful feast of action next year.
Lauren McCann is the Scoop’s Sport Editor and an English and Spanish student at Queen’s University Belfast.