AFTER A LATE night flight, the Raheny United squad will have arrived in Romania in the small hours of this morning ahead of a mammoth week of Champions League qualifiers, which kicks off on Saturday.
Last season’s Womens National League (WNL) champions are aiming to progress out of a group containing hosts Olimpia Cluj Napoca, FC NSA Sofia of Bulgaria and Maltan outfit Hibernians with the eight winners from each group and two of the best runners-up earning spots in the round of 32.
12 months ago, the Dublin club only managed three points from a possible nine but, speaking to TheScore.ie, Raheny striker Rebecca Creagh believes they can give a better account of themselves this time around.
“Preparations have gone really well,” Creagh said. “We’ve been doing pre-season the past two months and the Bank Holiday weekend just gone we were in Saturday and Sunday 12-7 and we had a bonding session on the Monday. Everyone is working hard and getting focused.
“Last year we didn’t do ourselves justice and came up short in the first two games. You could say the second game was down to a few decisions but I don’t really like to blame referees.
I’m hoping we can go at it full steam ahead this time. We have that experience now and we know what to expect in regards to the whole set-up and the way things go.
“The fitness is the main thing that let us down in previous European campaigns but we have worked really hard on that. Obviously the heat is going to play a factor but luckily enough we got a few weeks of high temperatures here to prepare us in some sort of way for going over.
“I’d like to think we are way better prepared this time around having (manager) Casey (McQuillen) on board unlike last year when he had only come in two or three weeks previous to us heading off. I’m pretty confident going into this one so finger’s crossed we can do the business.”
The club was buoyed by the performances of four of its players who featured in the Ireland U19 womens team which made it to the semi-finals of last month’s UEFA European Championships and training sessions in recent weeks have been incredibly competitive.
“We were buzzing for them,” adds Creagh. “There was a sense of getting them back now while they’re on top and in great form. When they got back they went straight into training and did really well. Lauren Dwyer who signed from Wexford who was struggling with her ankle but she is looking okay now so it’s great going into such a big campaign.
“Over the past few weeks we have been playing 11 v 11 games and it has been a really good standard with high intensity so hopefully that will have done us a few favours. We’ll see over the next week or so.”
First up is a meeting against home side Olimpia Cluj on Saturday before they take on NSA Sofia two days later and finally Hibernians next Thursday. Doing your homework on the opposition can often prove problematic as their games may not be readily available but they will make do with what they’ve got.
“It is difficult to get footage from the opponents’ games,” explains Creagh. “We did get a bit of the Romanian team and we went through that video analysis over the weekend because it’s the first game and the one we are focusing on.
“We’ve seen a bit of what they do and I’m sure Casey has more for the next few days. He knows his stuff. It is tough to get exposure in this country so I’m sure it’s the same for them since we don’t know too much about the teams.”
