Scotland Women beat Northern Ireland after seven-minute treble

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She Kicks Magazine

·15 July 2023

Scotland Women beat Northern Ireland after seven-minute treble

Scotland’s Sam Kerr got her first international goal. (Alex Todd/SPP)

Scotland defeated Northern Ireland 3-0 in a women’s international friendly played in front of 5,148 fans at a rainswept Dundee FC (with added reporting from Chris Marshall @mershdoes).

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Northern Ireland keeper Shannon Turner saved from Caroline Weir and moments afterwards pushed away Erin Cuthbert’s shot from her own poor clearance.

Cuthbert and Kirsty Hanson combined to set up a chance only for the former to inadvertently block the goal-bound shot.

Scotland were ahead on 32 minutes, Cuthbert firing inside the near post from Emma Watson’s cut-back.

It was 3-0 within six minutes, Sam Kerr heading her first international goal from Weir’s corner, before Hanson’s cross deflected in off Martha Thomas.

Northern Ireland rallied as Rachel Furness hit the bar from distance, Cuthbert deflecting a Julie Andrews’ follow-up over the bar.

Sam Kerr prevented Caitlin McGuinness getting a goal back, Northern Ireland having penalty appeals turned down in the same move.

Sam Kerr – Post Match-Thoughts

On scoring her first goal for Scotland – “It was really good, I thought Sophie Howard had actually stolen it off me so luckily it crossed the line before she got a touch. I was a bit confused to begin with but the rest of the girls were like “it’s yours” and so yeah, really honoured to score my first goal for Scotland.”

On the performance as a whole – “We’ve had a summer break so we were a bit rusty coming in but we’ve had a really good week in training, reminding ourselves of our principles and yeah at times it was a bit scrappy, but at times I felt we played some really good football and we managed to score three goals. That’s probably something we’ve missed in the past, that clinical edge to see off games so scoring three goals is excellent.”

On momentum building ahead of the Nations League – “If you look at us a year ago compared to now, you can see our performances and our results are improving and we continue to work on our style of play and that’s a process. We obviously need to acknowledge that it’s not going to be perfect, you need to sometimes make mistakes and build on it. So we’re hoping to get another good result against Finland to set us up for the Nations League later in the year.”

Scotland Head Coach Pedro Martinez Losa – Post-Match Thoughts

On the result – “It was a good test and in the first half especially we found a good tempo and had a lot of the ball, finding a way to break down the opposition and we scored three goals.

The second half became a little more sloppy because of the condition of the pitch but I’m happy not to concede, to score goals and to not pick up any injuries.”

On Amy Rodgers making her debut at centre back – “Initially we had one plan but then we wanted to protect Sophie Howard and so decided it would be good to give Amy minutes in that defensive position as she can play there, and we have to take that opportunity to do that when there is a little less pressure on a game. It was also great to give an opportunity to Kirsty (MacLean) too without that pressure.”