Ahead of naming her squad for the Nations League playoff against Belgium, the first leg of which takes place at the Aviva Stadium on Friday evening, Carla Ward had a mixed bag of news to deal with on the player availability front.
The biggest loss was that of goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan, out with a knee injury, the biggest boost Denise O’Sullivan’s return to fitness having not played for her club for two months.
“To have lost Denise would have been catastrophic,” said the head coach, “I would argue she’s one of the best players I’ve ever worked with. She’s unbelievable for us, on and off the pitch. Phenomenal. Can’t you tell how happy I am that she’s back in with us.”
O’Sullivan played the last 20 minutes for North Carolina Courage at the weekend, her first game-time since mid-August when she injured her knee. “I was on quite a lot with their medical team,” said Ward. “We were told she’d be out [for the Belgian games], but I wasn’t going to settle for that until the last minute.”
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Brosnan’s absence means Ward will have to choose between Grace Moloney, Sophie Whitehouse and Katie Keane as her stand-in, Keane’s youth making the first two the more likely contenders.
“Grace and Sophie are in good form. From a data point of view, we’re talking the top two goalkeepers in the WSL2 right now. They’re both playing, they’re both performing, they’re both very different. So that is a big question mark – and honestly, that’s not been decided yet.”
One player who is unlikely to feature in the games is Athlone Town’s Kelly Brady, although she will train with the squad this week. Ward was in Tallaght on Sunday to see her score a hat-trick in the FAI Cup final win over Bohemians, but while impressed by her ability, she says she’ll only be included in the squad if injuries force other players to drop out.
“Kelly’s been impressive all season. Her athleticism is probably different to some of the other League of Ireland players that we’ve looked at. Her movement in the box is unbelievable and she’s got a leap that a lot of forwards would love to have.
“But we’ve spoken about it a lot, the difference between League of Ireland part-time football and full-time. The biggest gap is probably that athleticism and the physical side of it. We’re quite heavy-loaded for that number nine spot, but it will be a really good chance to have a look at her this week, for sure.”
Where Ward has fewer options, she admits, is in midfield, Megan Connolly and Lily Agg are both absent through injury, while Ruesha Littlejohn has got just over an hour of football under her belt since joining Crystal Palace last month. She is, then, particularly pleased to welcome Jamie Finn back in to the fold, the 27-year-old returning to action for Sunderland last month after being out since February of last year when she tore her anterior cruciate ligament while training with Ireland.
“It’s a big boost to have her back,” said Ward. “Jamie’s got a lot of match minutes under her belt this season and I’ve been really impressed with the way she plays. It’s an area of the pitch that we need to bring players through, so yeah, a real boost.”
“Every single day during my ACL rehab, I thought about playing for Ireland. Honestly, it was what kept me going,” said Finn who has 20 caps to her name. That rehab, she says, was “torture”, mentally and physically. “I thought I was resilient before, but this was a new level of resilience.”
“To have something that’s been such a part of your life taken away in that one instant ... it’s quite hard to replace it with something that gives you the same rush as football. You need to just keep the end goal in sight, and the end goal for me was getting back playing football and getting back in to this camp. That was the last piece of the puzzle, but for me, probably the biggest piece.”
Remarkably, Finn is one of just four players in this squad, along with O’Sullivan, Katie McCabe and Heather Payne, who started at Hampden Park three years ago this month in the World Cup qualifying playoff win over Scotland. Brosnan and Agg are out injured, while Niamh Fahey, Louise Quinn, Diane Caldwell, Megan Campbell and Áine O’Gorman have all since retired.
“Yeah, we’ve lost a good chunk of big characters in the dressingroom, but there’s a lot of talent coming through, new players have come in. I kind of feel like a new player too, I’ve been out for that long. Yeah, it’s brilliant to be back.”
