Women’s Nations League: Northern Ireland ‘get smacked in the face and rebound well’

“We get smacked in the face a little bit and rebound really well.”

Head coach Tanya Oxtoby perfectly summed up Northern Ireland’s Nations League campaign after Friday’s 4-0 home defeat by Poland.

Looking at their five games so far, two things stand out: errors and resilience.

One fails to exist without the other and while the former has plagued them and cost them in quite a few games, the latter has offered hope for the future.

Looking at errors first, the two goals conceded in defeat in Gdansk in their first game were preventable.

In the win against Bosnia-Herzegovina, Emina Ekic’s solo run and finish came after the Northern Ireland defence stood off her.

The less said about Mihaela Ciolacu’s equaliser in the 1-1 draw in Romania the better, as she had an easy finish after Ellie Mason and Rachel Dugdale left the clearance to each other and both missed it.

Then on Friday night, the clinical Ewa Pajor burst between two defenders to prod home the opener, Jackie Burns gifted her a second, and Northern Ireland failed to clear their lines to allow Paulina Tomasiak to score a third before half-time.

However, Oxtoby’s side have shown an ability to react to setbacks.

They didn’t crumble in Gdansk, they fought back to beat Bosnia, and after the frustration in Bucharest they produced their best display of the campaign to beat Romania 1-0 at home.

Oxtoby hopes her side can once again dip into their reserves of resilience in Tuesday’s crucial game against Bosnia in Zenica, where a win would hand NI a promotion play-off place.

“I don’t have any doubt in my mind we’ll perform on Tuesday,” she said.