A new chapter at Finn Harps begins this weekend as the senior women’s team takes to the field for their first competitive encounter.
The League of Ireland has introduced a new Women’s Development League for 2026 and it was announced back in September that Finn Harps would be joining the new competition.
The senior side will be managed by Dessie McGlinchey who has done trojan work at underage level alongside other hardworking club members.
They will have been eagerly awaiting this weekend over the last couple of months and McGlinchey expressed that there’s real enthusiasm within the group.
“The excitement has been building. When you get into pre-season it can start to drag on a little bit but over the last week or so that excitement has started to come back when you see the start of the league coming up, especially this week, there’s real excitement around the camp.”
McGlinchey’s outfit have been training well in preparation for the upcoming campaign. They began collective training at the turn of the year, having undergone individual programs which were supplied to them in the weeks leading up to this.
Speaking to the Donegal News, the Finn Harps senior woman’s manager stated that things have gone very well in the lead-up to their opening competitive contest.
“Pre-season has been excellent. We started our pitch sessions in the second week of January but these girls have been in pre-season long before that.
“It’s been strong. We train twice a week and we try to play a game most weekends whether it’s against our Under 17s or a challenge game against the likes of Derry City or Sligo Rovers which has set us up nicely.”
The League of Ireland Women’s Development League will be made up of a mixture of newly formed teams and Under 23 sides from clubs in the Premier Division.
In Finn Harps’ group there are some big hitters, with the likes of Shelbourne, Galway United, Peamount United and Bohemians all occupying places in Group 1.
The Finn Harps women’s boss discussed that these are the challenges that they want to face in order to develop them to a level where they can elevate themselves to the top flight later down the line.
“Absolutely and there’s no bigger one than the first game of the season against Shelbourne. The format of it last year with the Under 19s was that a lot of the senior clubs could play the Under 23 girls in their starting eleven any weekend.
“For them nothing much has changed, for ourselves now we’re probably able to strengthen that little bit. We have ambitions to push further and get into the Premier Division and for us to do that we need to be testing ourselves against tough teams week in, week out here now.
“We want the bigger teams to be strong and we want to be tested against them because that’ll further drive us forward to our main aim which is to hopefully get into the Premier Division in two or three years time.”
As McGlinchey mentioned, the Navenny Street Club face Shelbourne in their opening league game this Sunday at Finn Park (2.30pm kick-off).
The Tolka Park residents are a top women’s side, finishing runners-up in the Premier Division on the last three occasions following their back-to-back success in 2021 and 2022.
It’ll be a historic occasion at Finn Park and McGlinchey is hopeful that they can get a good support there on the day to support his side.
“You always want to play the big teams and to get Shelbourne into Finn Park now on Sunday is a fantastic occasion for us. It would be fantastic if we could get a big support down there for the girls.
“As I always say, these girls give up so much for training and with the games on Sundays, they give up their weekends to go and play the sport that they love. It’d be great to get good support there on Sunday to cheer them on.”
