Karen Duggan: Katie McCabe is one of a kind, a special player

It wasn’t quite the easy ride we expected in that first half, but we came good in the end, thanks largely to the wonder that is Katie McCabe’s left foot. “This might be a lesser opposition, but we don’t drop standards,” was the gist of her message through the game. And you could feel the crowd feed off that. She’s one of a kind. Tallaght on Friday was all about Katie.

Not that we needed any further evidence, but once again we saw the pay-off when you play her higher up the pitch. A hat-trick and two assists. Say no more. We have Izzy Atkinson, Megan Campbell is back, Aoife Mannion will, hopefully, be too soon. And there’s Tara O’Hanlon to come.

There are plenty of options at the back, but there aren’t too many Katie McCabes.

A word too for Kyra Carusa, who scored twice from McCabe assists. She’s a born and bred instinctual centre forward, her selfless running showing her love for and commitment to this team. Through tough times with Ireland, she has stayed motivated, we are now reaping the rewards. She has been excellent.

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Yes, that first half was frustrating, not least the sloppy concession of the goal, but we need to remember this is a transitional period, we’re still trying to get used to being the team with the bulk of the possession. And as we saw in that first half, it’s taking us time to adapt.

We should have been better in possession and with the pace that we moved the ball. There was a lack of patience, we were forcing the issue. New players in, a new formation, that all played in to it. There’s definitely room for improvement, but we need to be as patient with this team as they need to be on the ball. There’s a lot of “unlearning” to do from the previous regime.

But I’m really, really enjoying watch this Irish team grow. No, we can’t expect miracles. No, we can’t get ahead of ourselves, and, of course, the opposition in this Nation League group is poor.

And there is an element of us getting carried away with our start to this campaign, with the wins, the number of goals we’ve scored and our more adventurous style of play. We have, of course, to remind ourselves that we’re not playing the quality of opposition we did in Australia.

But the chief focus of Eileen Gleeson’s interim tenure has been to build these girls’ confidence, to convince them that they’re good enough to adapt to whatever challenges present themselves, and also to give experience to squad players so that when they’re called upon they too are able to adapt. So far, that has been achieved.

I love that Abbie Larkin and Izzy Atkinson were given a start in this game, and when Sinead Farrelly and Erin McLaughlin came on they both added guile to the performance. That’s what we need, to broaden the squad’s experience, so that when they’re needed they’re ready.

[ Katie McCabe scores superb hat-trick as Ireland demolish Albania ]

We’re not going to become a brilliant attacking team overnight, we know the calibre of our current opposition, we know we should be winning this group easily. When we play the higher ranked nations we will probably revert to that solid defensive shape, but we have to learn how to become less predictable when we face the lower ranked teams, so they can’t work us out. So far, so good.

Nine points out of nine in the campaign so far, then, the perfect start for the team and for Eileen, about whom there was plenty of speculation after her remarks to the media on Thursday.

When she said “if I wanted to manage any team, it’s this team,” that was interpreted in some quarters as meaning that she wanted the job on a permanent basis, even though she had earlier ruled herself out of the running.

I didn’t really read her comments that way. Eileen is an Irish women’s football person to the core, she’s entrenched in it, so for me her words simply meant that, in her eyes, this is the biggest job in football. And that’s how she would love to think anyone who comes to the position would feel about it too. She has a good way with the media, if she wanted her name to be thrown in the hat, I think she would have done it in a more direct way.

I saw it more as a calling card to the FAI, that whoever they choose to succeed Vera Pauw should be as passionate about the development of Irish women’s football as Eileen and the team are. The players want to take it to the next level, the new manager should too.

I’ve said before that I believe she is the perfect fit for her role as the FAI’s head of women’s and girls’ football, it’s a role that needs someone who is willing to put in the work and has a good knowledge of the landscape. Eileen fits the brief. So that’s where I would prefer her to stay.

Finally, a salute to Diane Caldwell on the occasion of her 100th cap. She’s the ultimate professional in the way she conducts herself. She has really scrapped to earn those 100 caps.

You can learn a lot from someone like Diane. She has sacrificed and been patient, whenever she’s been called upon you know you’ll get 100 per cent from her, and that she’ll always be prepared, whether it’s for two minutes or one hundred and two.

A great servant to the jersey. No matter what her career threw at her, she has always remained ready to pull on that green shirt.