IRELAND’S NEWEST ADDITION underlines their gradual squad evolution.
Defence is one area in which Eileen Gleeson is not light on options, but Aston Villa star Anna Patten was a surprise call-up yesterday.
The England underage international was one of eight defenders named in the squad for the upcoming Euro 2025 qualifiers against France and the Lionesses.
Centurions Louise Quinn, Niamh Fahey and Diane Caldwell all got the nod, as did Patten’s fellow new(ish) recruits Caitlin Hayes and Aoife Mannion. Teen sensation Jessie Stapleton was also selected, along with Megan Campbell.
Patten’s arrival further accentuates a changing of the guard.
The backline’s age profile is striking. Fahey is the eldest squad member at 36. The Liverpool captain — an injury concern currently — turns 37 in October.
Caldwell will celebrate her own 36th birthday in September, while Quinn is 34 in June.
All three regularly start, with their combined cap total a staggering 329.
Hayes and Mannion both turn 29 in September, while Campbell is 30 years old.
Stapleton blew out 19 candles recently, while newest addition Patten is 25 next month.
“There has been plenty of press around an ageing backline and an experienced backline,” Gleeson said yesterday.
“Age doesn’t wait for anybody, so we have to look at the squad and the needs of the particular positions that we need to refill. We have Jessie Stapleton in that area coming through, we have Aoife Mannion, hopefully, we have Anna. We have to start filling positions where players are going to naturally transition out of.
“That is part of the longer-term development plan.”
With a view towards Euro 2025 or the 2027 World Cup?
“Both.
“Everything we do is with a longer-term view and we have got very experienced players in Louise, Diane and Niamh and they would be very aware themselves around the lifespan of the top-level athlete and us as the management, the coaching staff, we have to keep looking with a longer-term view.
“Like we said in the Nations League, you try to bring a couple of young players in. Now we are trying to get minutes under Jessie Stapleton’s belt, because potentially she is your core starting centre-back in Euro 2025.
“The level of the opposition now in this group doesn’t lend itself to us transitioning some of the much younger players in during these games and the squad is much more competitive at this point, but yes, these are looking to 2025 and your World Cup then.”
The long-term view is constantly spoken about in team meetings, Gleeson says, with a focus on the future at all times. She uses the example of not rushing the injured Sinead Farrelly back into the squad due to the risk of losing the Gotham FC midfielder for a longer period.
Hayley Nolan and Claire O’Riordan are among the defenders to have missed out on this occasion. Nolan (27) has excelled at Championship outfit Crystal Palace, while O’Riordan (28) is on the books of Standard Liege in Belgium after forcing her way into the World Cup picture.
Just as squad evolution and player turnover is part and parcel of the game, so too is selection going for, and against, players at different stages.
“You have to make those tough decisions,” Gleeson said, “and it can be difficult for players to understand that when they are at a club where maybe they are Player of the Month or Championship Player of the Month and you don’t get selected.
“But you are always in direct competition. Hayley is in direct competition with Niamh Fahey. There are defining factors which help the decision, but on a personal level of course it’s difficult to tell someone, ‘You are not selected’.
“But often those players are very close, so you have to keep reframing it as, you are close, what can we do to get you there?”
Chloe Mustaki and Savannah McCarthy — both nearing their late twenties — are two more defenders currently unavailable through injury. But time is generally on all of their sides, unlike others.
Abbie Larkin, Izzy Atkinson and Jess Ziu are among the youngsters Gleeson has placed her trust in in other areas of the pitch, while she has capped promising striker Emily Murphy and kick-started the international career of midfielder Tyler Toland.
She handed Peamount United talent Erin McLaughlin her debut and exposed her teenage clubmates Jess Fitzgerald, Ellen Dolan and Freya Healy to the international set-up.
None of the Peamount quartet feature in the squad for France and England. In fact, there is no Women’s League of Ireland representation at all. That’s owing to increasing competition and players operating at higher levels, Gleeson said, insisting that the first look is always at the domestic league, which is “developing nicely but there is still a lot that has to be developed”.
“The level of this opposition doesn’t allow us to bring the likes of young Freya in and Ellen in, we have to have a bit more experience in at this point.”
“We need an U23 team and I think that will be something that will happen down the line and that will be the mechanism to capture the players that are not quite ready,” she later added.
Gleeson clearly sees Patten in her immediate plans, however, and her addition underlines a measured changing of the guard.
