DESPITE THE OUTCOMES, Heather Payne is adamant that Ireland’s recent run of challenging fixtures will stand to them in the long run.
Friday night’s game against Iceland marked a sixth consecutive loss for Vera Pauw’s side, who were beaten 3-2 in a friendly in Reykjavik. All of those defeats have come at the hands of teams above Ireland in the Fifa rankings.
With one eye on the start of the World Cup qualifying campaign against Georgia in September, Payne reckons the 34th-ranked Girls in Green are moving in the right direction.
Ireland, who were 3-0 down at half-time against Iceland, showed significant improvement in the second half as Payne and Amber Barrett both found the net.
Ahead of another meeting with the same opposition tomorrow evening, the 21-year-old attacker is hopeful that they’ll ultimately reap the benefits of avoiding straightforward assignments when they launch another bid to qualify for a first major tournament.
“We’ve been playing opposition who are ranked higher than us so of course it’s going to be a challenge,” said Payne. “I think we’re better off challenging ourselves than just getting easy wins.
“It’s disappointing to lose again and our first-half performance just wasn’t good enough, but we came back out in the second half and got a couple of goals. We could have drawn because we had a good few chances so that’s a positive to take.
“It’s good to play these games because these are the teams you want to be competing against.”
Winning her 17th cap, Payne opened her international account in the fifth minute of the second half by getting on the end of an Eabha O’Mahony cross that was helped on by Amber Barrett.
The Florida State University player, who made her senior Ireland debut in 2017, is now keen to ensure that the goal goes down as the first of many.
She said: “I feel like it’s been a long time coming. Just from the few previous games I feel like it’s been coming a while so I just wanted to finally get my first goal. Once you get it, it’s done, and hopefully I can kick on and get a few more.
“That’s what we’ve been lacking as well until now. We haven’t really been scoring many chances so I was really happy to get my first goal.”
