Emma Hansberry delighted with new life at Wexford

After joining Wexford Youths last August ahead of the UEFA Women’s Champions League qualifiers, Emma Hansberry unlike many of her teammates on Sunday collected her first WNL medal thanks to a 2-1 victory in the league play-off against Shelbourne, and after the game the midfielder spoke to Extratime.ie about being crowned league champions.

“I do not know what to say” she said when asked for her emotions after finally getting her hands on the league trophy.

“It’s such a brilliant feeling. It just makes everything [during] the last few months worthwhile. It makes all the tough matches we had to go through in the short space of time, so much sweeter right now and words can’t describe how I’m feeling because I am over the moon.”

After previously leaving the pitch at Tolka Park 11 days earlier looking both mentally and physically drained, Hansberry revealed that the break was huge as balancing football with other commitment can take its toll on a player’s body.

“The amount of matches we had in a short space of time it really does take over your body, both physically and I think more so mentally as a player. Everybody has other things going on outside of football, there’s exams, there’s work, there’s other commitments going outside of football so it’s such a mental thing for us so to have that ten day break as you can see out there it definitely stood to us because we came out guns blazing and we did not settle that whole 90 minutes of the game.”

Despite some early pressure from Youths they found themselves behind in the 14th minute through a Pearl Slattery goal and the midfielder explained that their back four and goalkeeper deserved a huge amounts of praise for how they withstood the Shelbourne onslaught in the first-half.

“Big credit goes to our back four and of course Tamara [Furlong] our keeper she pulled off a top class save at the end of the game, that kept us in it, that kept our heads up and that drove us even further to not let them come back we did not want them to score there was nothing stopping us from winning and I think everyone as a unit today particularly the defensive unit worked their socks off and they pulled us through the game and like a team we got everyone through at the end of the day.”

After making the decision to move clubs at the start of the season Hansberry also made the unprecedented decision to move her college commitments from IT Sligo to IT Carlow and the central midfielder admits it was a hard decision to leave Castlebar Celtic, but she is delighted with how she has settled into the Wexford outfit.

“When I moved from Castlebar it was definitely the toughest decision of my footballing career so far as you said I played with them for four years in the Women’s National League and the season before in the Mayo league. They are like my family, they still are. I still get on with every single one of them obviously the move was terribly difficult, but in terms of football I’m so happy at Wexford Youths.

“They’re such a brilliant bunch of girls and that match today, just showcased how good we are - how much of a team spirit we have going on and how close every single one of us are. We will not give up no matter what happens. Things didn’t go our way fair enough in the last couple of weeks in the league, but look we bounced back today and there was nothing stopping us from winning that league today.”

Having proven herself to be one of the best footballers in the Women’s National League during the 2015-16 season, Hansberry was rewarded for her excellent displays with her first international cap at the Cyprus Cup and the Sligo native revealed it a special moment to represent her country at senior level.

“It was a brilliant feeling, you work your way up through the ranks underage and to finally get my senior cap it was a very special moment for me, I waited a couple of years for it but they're not given out easily. You have to work your arse off in there and you have to show that you that you want it and show that you’re ready for that jump up to senior level. For me, I was delighted to get it, but hopefully now in the next couple of years I can push on even more to.”

With five goals in four games during the month of April, Hansberry was rewarded for her performances with the Player of the Month award and while she explained it was nice to win this award, she would not have won it without the help of her Wexford teammates.

“It’s another nice little thing to add to today, in April as I said we had a massive amount of games, but it was nice to get it. I definitely wouldn’t have got it without the team I was just of a whole squad there they could have picked any of the starting 11, any of the subs because everyone who comes on makes an impact for Wexford Youths. At the end of the day winning the league was the most important thing and we got what we wanted today.”