Vera Pauw says her players have shown time and again that they can cope with the kind of pressure that they will face at next summer’s World Cup finals.
Pauw attended Saturday morning’s draw in Auckland, where Ireland were selected in Group B along with co-hosts Australia, Olympic gold medallists Canada and top African side Nigeria.
The Girls in Green will take on Australia on the first day of the tournament in Sydney, in front of what is expected to be a sell-out 42,500-strong crowd.
Pauw said: “You need to be ready for the task and if the task is under higher pressure at a higher level you need to be ready for that.
“That is the preparation programme that we are going to set in.
“We have shown that we were ready against Sweden at home, Finland away, Finland at home and Sweden away.
“We were ready for Slovakia and then the biggest final – Scotland away – we were ready for that.
“This is a team that if we prepare well we can know exactly what to expect from each other.
“We eliminate what we are not so good at and we benefit from what our talents are.
“Then this is a team that doesn’t fear anyone and the pressure is then embraced. We embrace that pressure and we use it to lift our game to a higher level.
“And you can only do that when you know exactly what is expected from you.
“Mental preparation is knowing what to do in the different moments of the game and put it in a way on the pitch where the players can show their best and that we eliminate what we are not so good at.”
Ireland beat Australia in a friendly in Tallaght Stadium last year, but Pauw said: “On the other hand, Australia is now warned about us. So it works both ways.
“It’s a one off game at the World Cup. It is the opening game so they will be nervous, we will be nervous.
“But I think we can play under high pressure which we have always shown that we get the best out of ourselves under high pressure.
“So you can only tell after the game. The only thing that we can say is that we will give everything in every game.
“They will be exciting games and we will be ready as well as we can and we will have a very good preparation programme.”
To be drawn against one of the co-hosts in Ireland’s very first World Cup finals campaign is something Pauw is excited about.
Particularly as she expects the large Irish communities in Sydney, Perth and Brisbane to come out strongly behind her team.
She said: “How good is it that you can play the opening game against the host nation in a full stadium, in a country where half of the country has Irish backgrounds, more maybe?
“Other people are now fighting at home because of the dilemma whether they will support Australia or Ireland?
“Even if they support Australia, they will be a little bit in their heart for us. It’s really the most exciting draw that you could get.
“On the other hand, we also have the Olympic champions in our group, Canada, and the best team from Pot 4, Nigeria.
“They should have been higher ranked but they don’t get the (ranking) points because they don’t play higher-ranked teams.
“So it is challenging, on the other hand everybody can steal points from each other. We don’t fear anyone.
“We will be well prepared and we’ll have our game plan ready. Then, off we go I would say.”
Not only will Ireland have to travel over 17,000km to get to Sydney - and the same again to get home - but between games they will be in the air for over 8,000km.
“We are the only group that has that (amount of travel),” said Pauw. “That is unfair, we knew it ahead, they haven’t done that deliberately. There’s one group that has to travel a lot.
“In the meeting this morning it was said they will have an extra day to clear the hotel… it’s something we have to face. It’s for the whole group.
“We will first have a three hours’ (time) difference, then two hours’ time difference back, we need to see if we can create a home base for our hotel and travel from that to the venue, or we don’t take a base and we travel from venue to venue.
“We’ll put all the pros and cons on the line and then we’ll decide and tell FIFA.”
As for her emotions at Ireland’s involvement for the first time at a World Cup draw, she said: “This morning we had a meeting with all the countries and FIFA in a big ballroom. We were welcomed as one of the three debutants.
“At that moment I felt goosebumps over my whole body. Like, ‘yeah, we’re here’.
“If you then see your country coming out of the pot, to play the host nation in the opening game, yeah it’s a dream come true.
“Nobody fears anyone. We don’t fear this challenge either.”
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