LOUISE QUINN SAYS she wants to see Ireland evolve into a team capable of exciting the world after their exit from the World Cup at the group stages.
Speaking on RTÉ’s coverage of today’s round of 16 games, the veteran defender expressed her desire “to see us really going after games” ahead of the Nations League campaign.
The Girls in Green begin with a historic fixture against Northern Ireland at Aviva Stadium on 26 September before travelling to Hungary a month later and then a double header with Albania before the end of the calendar year.
The FAI have confirmed they will now “undertake a full and comprehensive review of the campaign and tournament”, with manager Vera Pauw’s future uncertain, and while Quinn did not address the issue directly she is adamant it’s time for Ireland to show progress in the final third.
“We’re going to soon have a bit more of a clear head to look forward to this sort of thing. [We're] definitely a top seed there [in that group] and I would like to see us really going after games.
“I think we need to, something that maybe in general what Irish teams at times lack is going forward, is scoring a lot of goals and dominating some of these games,” Quinn continued. “We have Katie McCabe, we have Denise O’Sullivan, Kyra Carusa is really coming into her own. We have brilliant attacking players.
“I feel like on some side of the thing we are always going to have defensively be sorted so I think we really have to push on and figure out how we create more goals, apart from set pieces.”
Asked if that was the natural next step and what the players would like to see, Quinn added: “Yeah, listen, I’m sure it is. Everyone wants to do their best to play attacking football. At the same time, we love defending, we’ll always do that, I get a buzz off it anyway, body on the line stuff. But you want to take advantage of the quality players we have going forward.
“Everyone does different things at club level and you just want to try bring that together. Our only goal [at the World Cup] was directly from a corner. We want to go and excite the world, excite Europe and get Ireland to a place it deserves to be. That’s possible, but we have to take the right steps at the right time.”
