Shamrock Rovers manager Collie O'Neill heaped praise on his players' fighting spirit after his side came back from a goal down to win at Shelbourne for a "sweet" opening to their SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division campaign on Saturday.
The Hoops trailed at Tolka Park after Shels striker Kate Mooney opened the scoring inside the first minute.
But Katie O'Reilly drew Rovers level in the 75th minute before Fiona Owens scored a late, late winner in the sixth minute of stoppage time to seal a 2-1 win and all three points.
"They're always the sweet ones, they really are, especially going behind so early, not panicking, staying in the game - we got fight," he said.
"We've got hunger in these kids and then they showed the extra fitness levels and the work-rate that we had, that you had your full back in the 95th minute bombing on like she that to stick it in the bottom corner, it's nice."
O'Neill added that it is "probably one of the happiest results I've had in a long time" and with a long season ahead with the addition of a 12th team to the league in the shape of Waterford, he feels the win over one of the title favourites sets them up nicely to push on.
"That's why we came back earlier this year. We did an extra two seasons in pre-season just so we could hit the ground running," he said.
"We wanted to give everything for the first game, win the first game, build momentum and see where it takes us."
Shelbourne boss Eoin Wearen, meanwhile, reflected on a disappointing start for his reigning FAI Cup and President's Cup-winning side, feeling that some penalty incidents could have gone their way while a decision to disallow a goal to go 2-0 up was "bizarre" in his view, citing the lack of appeals from Rovers' players.
"The issue was obviously long before that. I thought we were really good at times in the first half," he said.
"There were stages where we probably could have capitalised and (gone) two or three-nil up and we did say that at half-time that we needed to go on and get the next goal, especially while we were on top of the game.
"I thought the start of the second half, there wasn't much between the sides. We started the second half slower than we would've liked compared to the first, and then the two goals, I'd have to look at the first one again exactly but the second one just comes from us committing bodies forward and trying to get the win and the play breaks down and they've extra numbers out the other side and they managed to find that free player and the ball goes in.
"But we have to look at ourselves. Parts of the game, first half I was happy with but second half I think we need to be a lot better."
