Ms Nicola Daly:

As players all we ever want to do is play at the highest level. As mentioned earlier, the Olympics is always the end goal. To qualify to compete at the Olympics, Irish teams compete against teams that are 100% funded and professional in some instances. For us, it is always about trying to bridge that gap.

Over the past year and a half, the committee has seen that we are bridging the gap as players. The funding coming in now since the world cup has been brilliant in allowing us to turn semi-professional in a sense, but challenges are still there for players every day. They have to go to work or college and are trying to train in a professional environment. The programme in place for 2020 has allowed us to come together a lot more, but we must sacrifice how we live on a day-to-day basis to do that. Our need involves making that commitment a bit easier for the players and turning it into a more professional set-up. The long term should be in sight. Whatever we will achieve in the next couple of years, it is about the grassroots and the girls coming in behind us so that we do not just have a structure for the next year or the next two years but one that will allow the younger teams to carry on and achieve what we will have achieved.