PEAMOUNT UNITED STRIKER Eleanor Ryan-Doyle has landed the SSE Airtricity Women’s National League [WNL] Player of the Month award for May.

The Dubliner has been in outstanding form for the reigning league champions and leaders, scoring seven goals in the fifth month of the year alone, with a season tally of 10 as she leads the Golden Boot race.

Ryan-Doyle, 23, has been central through Peamount’s unbeaten start to the 2021 season, creating and scoring goals, and excelling week on week in a star-studded line-up.

She’s keen to highlight those around her, stressing the fact that it’s a team effort and that these plaudits must be shared.

“Winning the Player of the Month, I’m delighted,” Ryan-Doyle said. “It’s obviously an individual award but you can’t really play a team sport and be individual so obviously the girls have helped me to get this.

“I’m really delighted about it but we need to push on and win team awards as well.

Can we go unbeaten? It’s hard to do. I think it’s something that we looked at last year but Wexford beat us in the League. I think this season we can go on and do it but we need to take one game at a time.”

Ryan-Doyle beat Wexford Youths ace Ciara Rossiter (second) and Athlone Town’s Muireann Devaney (third) to the monthly award, which Galway United striker and Mayo ladies football star Rachel Kearns scooped in April.

The Peamount ace has since leapfrogged Kearns in the Golden Boot Race, and looks likely to finish as Top Goalscorer should her stunning scoring form continue. Her team-mate Áine O’Gorman, of course, won that honour last season.

The pair have been combining excellently, both attending a Republic of Ireland home-based training session last night with Vera Pauw announcing her squad for upcoming friendlies against Iceland tomorrow.

“Áine is a great player and she is someone that I obviously look up to,” Ryan-Doyle, a three-time inclusion in the WNL Team of the Season, said.

“She has some experience with Ireland and playing overseas as well, so I think it’s a player that I look up to and who drives me in each match and every season.

“Whoever scores, it doesn’t really matter who scores once we get the goals and the clean sheets. I think it’s important that we continue playing well, scoring the goals and progressing on from there.”

On the upward trajectory the domestic league is enjoying at the minute, Ryan-Doyle added: 

“I think SSE Airtricity have been brilliant this year. They brought in LOI TV and everyone from anywhere can stream the matches. I think it’s brilliant the publicity as well, the coverage they are giving to us is something that was really needed this year.”

Peamount welcome Wexford Youths to Greenogue for a massive top-three clash this weekend before the mid-season break, with second-place Shelbourne — currently five points off the top — hosting Athlone Town.