THERE IS NO precedent for some of the heartache felt by those players omitted from the Ireland squad for the World Cup next month.
A groundbreaking period for the women’s game in this country has, until now, largely been focused on the positives of reaching a new frontier that offers so much promise for the future.
There was a brief indication of the other side to the spotlight after securing their place in Australia and New Zealand. The fallout to the celebration video from their dressing room in Scotland, when they sang a chorus of “Ooh, ah, up the Ra”, was strained but soon forgotten once the usual bouts of bombast subsided.
But as the news filtered through that defenders Megan Campbell and Aoife Mannion had been left out due to injury, and that Leanne Kiernan and Jamie Finn were overlooked for a combination of tactical and form reasons, it felt like something far more significant. The kind of moment that will linger in the memory and be a continual reference point for anguish.
Head coach Vera Pauw was at least able to break the news to each individual face to face, and in good time. The mind wandered back to the story of Gary Waddock, who played in the final warm-up game before the men’s team’s first World Cup in 1990 and was cut from the squad by Jack Charlton while standing at a luggage carousel in Valetta airport waiting to board a flight to Italy.
Similarly, there was the sight of a despondent Kevin Foley sitting on a park bench in the small Italian town of Montecatini after being informed by Giovanni Trapattoni that he was not going to Euro 2012 – that news came one hour before the final squad had to be submitted.
Not that good forward thinking and logistics will make this any more bearable for those who lost out.
For Finn especially, falling down the pecking order after being such a vital cog in the qualifying campaign will hurt. There is a place as one of the three players travelling on the training list, but Pauw’s detailed explanation of how she no longer fits into her plans within a tweaked system were as refreshingly honest as they were brutal.
Kyra Carusa offers a better option in that lone role up front while the pace of Heather Payne on the wing is viewed as more of a threat. The emergence of 18-year-old Abbie Larkin and her ability squeezing Finn out.
A harsh but understandable example of why there can be no blind loyalty towards those groundbreaking Irish players now left on the other side of history.
Injury has robbed Campbell, another stalwart, of this crowning career moment in her career while newly-qualified Mannion, who impressed since her debut against China PR earlier this year and offered Ireland a more progressive way of playing from defence, has also been unable to recover in time from a knee injury.
Everything has been geared towards the month that is to come.
Pauw has been the mastermind of this golden moment, plotting a carefully crafted qualification for a first major tournament. But, as she explained earlier today, it was only after a 1am meeting on Tuesday followed by one last get together with her staff seven hours later that a final decision on her 23-woman squad was made.
Pauw described earlier today how “I’ve broken dreams. It’s so hard for them because that World Cup will not come back.”
There is also something to be admired in the way the Ireland manager has not allowed her choices to be swayed by sentiment, not to mention an openness to being won over by outsiders.
Izzy Atkinson’s inclusion is the prime example given she had not even been included in the original preliminary squad and was only called in due to those injury concerns in defence.
Pauw expressed her admiration for the way a player she had capped just once previously had matured. Tactically, “the penny dropped” for a 21-year-old who grasped her opportunity.
Now a bigger one awaits.
