Willie Doyle - Europe has made us hungry for more success

After a European campaign in Poland, which saw Wexford Youths win two out of three games, attention has now turned to the Women’s National League campaign, which kicks off in less than two weeks and at the league launch on Saturday afternoon Youths boss Willie Doyle spoke to Extratime.ie about the forthcoming season.

“We’re obviously delighted to be back involved and the league kicks off pretty soon. European campaign is definitely behind us and we’ve got to push on and try to retain the Women’s National League we won last year.

“The positive we’ve got to take from [Champions League Qualifiers] is we have got enough players in the squad to go on and do the same thing again - competition is going to be massive, with Shelbourne, UCD and the rest of the teams all improving so it’s up to us to step on again.”

With the added demands to his squad due to European football, Doyle and his Youths management team have strengthened their side accordingly with some huge additions and the manager feels the new players will help to push the defending champions on to the next level as competition for places in starting eleven is at a high.

“We aimed in the closed season to create a more competitive team and the starting eleven have to be pushed that little more - probably last year we had the bones of twelve to fourteen players, whereas now we’re stepping that up to fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen all challenging for a starting eleven birth.

“That in turn brings the training session standards up and in turn hopefully brings the quality of our team performances up - if players aren’t doing it, they’ll know there's somebody there to take their place.”

The 2015-16 season will see for the first time the introduction of the Women’s National League Shield and in their opening game Youths host UCD Waves, their closest rival from the previous season.

“We’re definitely ready to go and play in the game in a couple of weeks, delighted that it is a tough game in the opening game and we’re going to take it one step at a time and try to get a result on the board.”

Despite failing to reach the last 32 of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, the Youths boss is hoping that his side take the experience of their week in Poland to ensure they push on this coming season and he is hoping his squad are not content to say they played in the Women’s Champions league.

“It sets a lot them up for what they want to go achieve in their career, are they prepared to say they just play Champions League football or do they want to take another step again and threats completely in their own hands - they know the level now that’s expected for European football and it's in their own hands whether they want to go to achieve it or not.”

Last season Youths had five members of their squad selected to represent Ireland, Carol Breen, Rianna Jarrett, Ciara Rossiter, Nicola Sinnott and Jessica Gleeson throughout the season and Doyle is delighted to see his side get the recognition they deserved for their exploits on the pitch, but he also concedes the players must continue their hard work if they are to continue to represent their country.

“We’re absolutely thrilled that the five of them are involved, our main aim is to maintain that and make sure they continue to go and push for international football - in our opinion they’ve got to keep doing that at local level first, show what they can do in the league and then Sue [Ronan] will have difficulty not to pick them, but again the quality is there within the national team that they’ve got to keep stepping on and showing they should be in there.”

One Youths member who Doyle is looking forward to welcoming back is Rianna Jarrett, the forward suffered a second ACL injury last January while on Ireland duty and the Youths boss is excited about welcoming her back to his squad very soon.

“Rianna will add massive competition to the forward places, I know herself, she was incredibly disappointed not to make it in time for the Champions League, but unfortunately the surgeons, physios dictate on whether they are ready or not. She feels good about herself and we’re obviously looking forward to having her back now in the next couple of weeks and getting her gradually built back in.”

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