McQuillan excited to get the new season underway

The 2015-16 Women’s National League begins in less than two weeks, with Shelbourne ladies travelling to Galway WFC in the first round of the WNL Shield and on Saturday afternoon at the FAI headquarters for the league launch, Shelbourne Ladies manager Casey McQuillan spoke to Extratime.ie about the season ahead.

“We’re looking forward to it, the build-up has been about six weeks and everybody wants to get out on the pitch and play a competitive match at this stage.”

With the morning proceedings completed, McQuillan watched on nervously from the sidelines of the FAI’s new 3G pitch, as many of his Shelbourne girls participated in a sixty minute exhibition match.

“They all got their warnings before they went out” he joked to Extratime.ie at the half-time break. “After putting in a long pre-season the last thing is players picking up knocks, but that's part and parcel of the game and if it happens, we’ll deal with it- that’s why we moved to Shels for that bigger player pool to work from.”

Last Season, McQuillan’s Raheny United side picked up crucial injuries at key parts of the season and with the move to Shelbourne the manager now has a larger group of talent to choose from, and he expects the new members of the group to push the experienced girls onto the next level with their desire to play Women’s National League football against some of the country's top players.

“That’s one of the pluses” he said. “That's why we want to move over, there was a little bit of complacency within the camp last year and now we’ve added the extra players in that are hungry for places and they’re going to push the senior players onto new levels.”

Despite having the monkey of being unbeaten in over fifty league games, removed last February when Wexford Youths defeated Raheny 3-0 at Ferrycarrig Park, McQuillan explains he approaches this season no different to any of the previous, with the only difference being Shelbourne LFC do not carry the history of Raheny United.

“Listen, I treat every game, every league season the same way, we approach it all the time the same way, but as it stands no league winners medals, no cup medal - we've no history as a senior team in the Women’s National League so we have to start from scratch.

“Does it take the pressure off? I don’t know, I think if a player doesn’t have that competitive side and hunger to win every game well then they need to put pressure on themselves to win games - I believe the pressure will still be there.”

With Shelbourne starting their Shield campaign on the road against Galway WFC, the Shels boss is expecting a tough game against the Westerners and he is looking forward to getting an opportunity to do some homework on his opposition when they travel to Dublin to play St Catherine’s in the first round of the Women’s FAI Cup.

“Galway historically is a tough game for us, we have the edge over them, but only just and it will be a tough game, they’re playing St Catherine’s next week so we’ll get out and have a look at them.”

As the Women’s National League approaches the start of its fifth season, McQuillan is expecting the 2015-16 season to be the best league campaign to date, with many twists and turns throughout the year.

“It’s only my third season in the league and I think it’s going to be a cracker of a season - there is going to be ups and downs. UCD just found their feet and they showed what they can do, Wexford have strengthened their side, we’ve strengthened our side; Galway will do what they do. I think it's going to be a cracker of a league and the best one yet.”

As all eight WNL clubs continue to their final preparations, the man in charge of the Reds concedes that the lack of suitable friendly’s for his side is a concern as they build up to September 5th and in the future they may look to sides from abroad to help ensure they get suitable pre-season games.

“I’m sure every team in the league would like more friendlies against quality opposition - that isn't the case at the moment, but that's definitely something we’d have to look at ourselves.

“I’m sure other teams are looking at it next year whether we get teams over to Ireland to play or whether we travel away to play them, but there's not the opposition in quality to play in friendlies unless you go playing boys teams.”