Katie McCabe is ready to “put Ireland on the map” by firing the Girls in Green to next summer’s World Cup finals.
The Arsenal ace was booted up and down the pitch on Tuesday by a physical Slovakia side.
But she still contributed to a crucial 1-0 win in Senec that earned Ireland a bye to the second and final round of the European play-off stage.
READ MORE: Slovakia 0-1 Ireland: Denise O'Sullivan's touch of class brings World Cup dream one step closer
Afterwards, McCabe beamed: “You see what The Lionesses have done in the Euros over the summer, putting the WSL on the map.
“We want to put the Republic of Ireland on the map. We want to be competing against the best teams in Europe and the best teams in the world.”
Joining Ireland (26th in FIFA rankings) in the second round - with an open draw taking place on Friday - are Iceland (14th) and Switzerland (21st).
The first round will see Belgium (19th), Austria (20th), Scotland (23rd), Portugal (27th), Wales (30th) and Bosnia & Herzegovina (63rd) all compete in one-legged ties for a spot in the final round.
Meanwhile, Vera Pauw says she trusts her players to step up to whatever challenge they face when the play-off draw is made on Friday.
But she still will cross her fingers and hope that the Girls in Green land a play-off tie against a lower ranked side.
They were handed another huge boost late on Tuesday night when the Netherlands scored an injury-time winner against Iceland to top their group.
Pauw admitted before the final whistle in that tie that she was desperate to avoid them, saying: “We don’t want the Netherlands, but we could draw them. We don’t want that."
Pauw’s stars are currently 26th in the world - with Bosnia and Herzegovina the lowest on the FIFA ladder of the play-off teams at 63.
“To be realistic, you want to have a lower ranked team. But you cannot tell, we just need to wait,” said Pauw, after the 1-0 win away to Slovakia.
That result has earned Ireland a night off when the first round of the play-offs take place early next month.
It also earned her players an opportunity to celebrate as they prepared to fly back to Dublin overnight.
“Yes. They are allowed to party. I will go to bed and leave them,” she said.
Pauw reckons Ireland’s run of clean sheets will strike fear into whoever comes out on the opposite side of the play-off draw.
“Four clean sheets in a row, Who would have thought that a while ago,” she said.
“I said at the pre-match meeting, ‘We always score, if we don’t concede, we always score’.”
Katie McCabe, meanwhile, is refusing to look too much into the permutations ahead of Friday’s play-off draw.
“Whoever comes out, that’s the luck of the draw isn’t it? It’s a cup final at the end of the day,” she said.
“Obviously we’ve done ourselves a bit of justice and got that bonus of missing the first round of the play-offs which was our target tonight. We’ll see.
“It’s a massive boost (to get the bye), it’s one less game. It’s massive, we can fully focus on the one game we have whoever we are drawn against. We will just give it our all really.”
She added: “We want to give people tough games, we’re not going to make it easy for people to beat us.
“ I think we’ve shown that by getting four clean sheets in the last four games. That’s a credit to our defence and goalkeeper.”
McCabe was sporting a few bruises as she reflected on Ireland’s latest win.
“Fucking kicked up and down the pitch,” she said. “I'm great.
“They obviously did their due diligence on us pre game and looked to maybe try to keep myself and Denise quiet.
“Kick me, try and get in my head. I rise to that, I enjoy getting kicked around the pitch, it brings me up a level.
“We got the win so that's the most important for me.
“It was important for us to start right. Second half they came out and looked to kick us, looked to - excuse the French - piss us off.
“It was up to us to stay in control, keep the head and let the football do the talking.
“There was all this chat of nerves on Thursday night but for me we weren't nervous, we were just adapting to Finland with a new manager and new way of playing.
“I think there was absolutely no nerves tonight. We were in control.
“We knew our game plan and we stuck to our roles and responsibility within that and ultimately came out on top.
“But we need to keep our feet firmly on the ground. We know we got a big game to go in the second round of the play-offs.
“I am just so proud of the team, that we kept a clean sheet again.”
She added: “We’ve got depth now in this team and that’s down to the girls and all their hard work over the course of the campaign.
“We’re here to challenge and we really want to make a major tournament.”
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