After Monday’s fireworks, when Diane Caldwell aimed several barrels at Vera Pauw’s Republic of Ireland reign, it was a more sedate affair at the squad’s Castleknock HQ on Tuesday morning, none of the players rolled out for media duties this time around having been part of the World Cup experience.
Among them was Shamrock Rovers defender Savannah McCarthy, who was eager to focus on the future, rather than dwell on the recent past.
“Everyone has their own opinion, I can’t speak for Diane, Diane spoke for what she thought was right,” she said of Caldwell’s remarks, “I haven’t been in the squad for 15, 16 months, so I haven’t seen what’s been going on. For me now it’s just about concentrating on the future – it’s a new campaign, a new beginning, it’s exciting.”
And the Listowel woman could be forgiven for wanting to forget the recent past, having endured more than a year on the sidelines after suffering a horrific knee injury while playing for Galway in March 2022. The 26-year-old only returned to action in April of this year.
“It was a freak accident, it wasn’t a challenge or a tackle, it was just a collision with my ‘keeper,” she said. “The injury wasn’t just an ACL [anterior cruciate ligament], it was an MCL [medial collateral ligament] and LCL [lateral collateral ligament] too, you name it. It was pretty much everything. It was a horrible one – especially for the year that was in it.”
The year that was in it saw her well on her way to establishing herself as one of Pauw’s three centre halves, McCarthy having earned her sixth cap under the Dutch coach the month before her injury, adding to the five she had won since being given her debut by Sue Ronan back in 2016.
Come the World Cup, she was back in Listowel watching the games with her family. “It was a tough watch, of course, harder having been involved in the lead-up to it. But I was delighted for all the girls who got there, they deserved it, I was their number one supporter. It was unbelievable for Irish football.”
By then she was back playing, having joined Rovers from Galway in January, but her World Cup dream ran out of time. “It just came a little too soon for me. Vera didn’t think I was ready and that was fair enough, I knew I wasn’t.”
Her road to recovery was gruelling and lonely. “Mentally, it was really tough,” she says. “But I stayed positive, and I’m glad to be here now. My main goal was always to come back, and to come back stronger. You have setbacks when things don’t go right, but you have to have that mindset that it’ll be better tomorrow. I just took it day by day. And I’ve come out the other side of it.”
McCarthy’s career, since her days playing with Listowel Celtic, has taken in stops at UCD Waves, Galway and Cork City, with a two-season spell at Glasgow City in between. But she’s loving life at Rovers, where the players are on professional, if modest, contracts.
“The set-up is unbelievable. The S&C [strength and conditioning], the gym, the pitches, the facilities ... I knew that they could get the best out of me. When you come back from an injury you don’t know if you’ll be the same player, but when I joined Rovers and was in that environment, I felt like I could get back to myself. And potentially get back with Ireland when I was 100 per cent fit. Although, I didn’t think I’d get back this soon.”
Her commitment to Rovers is demonstrated by her three-days-a-week commute from Listowel, each leg of her drive taking at least three hours.
“Tough, but it’s worth it,” she smiles. “I’m here, this is what I want to be doing.”
If she features in Saturday’s Nations League game against Northern Ireland at the Aviva, in what will be the women’s team’s first appearance in the stadium, that would top everything.
She played there before, for UCD in the 2014 cup final against Raheny. They lost 2-1, Raheny’s opener coming from a free-kick from 35 yards out, planted in the net by an upstart by the name of Katie McCabe.
McCarthy will hope for a happier Aviva experience this time around. McCabe will hope for more of the same.
“After what these girls have done for Irish football, every little Irish girl has someone to look up to now,” she says. “It’s given us the drive, we want more of the same, these are exciting times.”
