Dunne hopeful Panthers can spark Super League campaign into life after November break
The Laois side, which has no competitive fixture until Saturday 21 November due to a bye in the opening round of the WSL Cup and the international break, has endured a tough start to their Domino’s Women’s Super League campaign, losing all of their opening six games, which consequently sees them rooted to the bottom of the table.
That disappointing run resulted in the dismissal of head coach, Ger Jago, who had only taken charge of the team in the summer, with the club opting to install Aaron O’Neill as caretaker coach until a permanent replacement can be found.
While O’Neill was unable to orchestrate a winning start to his tenure when the team recently travelled to Leixlip to face off against FloMAX Liffey Celtics in their final game before the three-week break, they still produced a very encouraging first-half performance that saw them head into the interval with a half-time lead for the first time this season.
Indeed, ahead 30-24 at that stage, Portlaoise had held Liffey to their lowest first-half points total of the season so far, but the 2025/26 National Cup finalists stormed back in the second half for a 67-42 triumph that improved their own record to 4-2 in the table.
Despite that reversal, Portlaoise skipper, Dunne insists they can build on the display they produced over those initial two quarters, telling the “We showed what we can do in that first half and now we just need to continue to build and extend it to 40 minutes, instead of just 20.
“We have two and a half weeks off now, so I think in that turnaround we can go and improve on what we showed we can do in that first half.
“That was our third game in six days, so bodies were tired and numbers were down, but hopefully now, with the rest, everybody will be able to recover and we’ll have healthy bodies when we come back,” she said.
Limiting Celtics to just 24 points in that first-half offered a glimpse as to the defensive potential of these Portlaoise players, and Dunne believes they can reproduce that level of intensity when protecting their own board over the course of the season.
“We pride ourselves on defence, and I know sometimes the scores might not reflect that, but once we get stops on defence, that’s when our offence flows,” she explained.
“We just need to get a few more stops in games and that’s how we’ll get that momentum going forward to score. We also just need to put the ball in the basket a little bit more,” she added.
Certainly, this Portlaoise squad has had to contend with a lot of setbacks and obstacles in the lead up to the start of the season as well as over the first few weeks of their campaign.
The loss of key players like Jessica Fressle, Lynn Tunnah and Ciara Byrne over the summer left previous coach, Jago scrambling to fill those positions when he was brought in.
And, while the recent arrival of Chinwe Iwunze and Bria Shine has helped them in that endeavour, it has still taken time for the team to settle.
What’s more, Panthers have not had the benefit of playing on their home court in St Mary’s Hall so far this season, due to work that has been carried out in upgrading the floor there.
Being shorn the level of support that St Mary’s can provide has surely been a factor in their early struggles this season, but Dunne is hopeful they can start to turn a corner when they return to action away to Gurranabraher Credit Union Brunell in Cork on 21 November.
“We’ve haven’t played in St Mary’s, and so we haven’t had that set place to train,” remarked Dunne. “Once St Mary’s is back, that’ll be another advantage for us and will help us get into a proper run.
“I think we deserve a result now. We’ve put in all the hard work and I know results may not show that, but hopefully, with these two and a half weeks,
we’ll build on what we have, grow more as a team and learn more about what our strengths are.
“I know we may have been together a while, but we’re still learning how to play together, so hopefully now, with us having Aaron in, it will be a lot more positive come the time we play Brunell.
“That’s never an easy game, but we’ll go down there and we’ll do our best. Defensively we will have to be excellent on that day and hope that the ball drops for us a lot more,” she stressed.
