After finding her feet at Brighton, the 30-year-old has enjoyed the finest few months of her career to date
Caitlin Hayes in action for Ireland against Poland in their 2027 World Cup qualifying group. Photograph: Mateusz Slodkowski/Getty ImagesIt’s so hot this weather, Caitlin Hayes’s phone advised her mid-conversation that it needed to shut down because it was overheating.
“And this is England,” she hollers. Mind you, despite those conditions, she’s putting in the hard yards even before starting preseason training with WSL side Brighton next week, daily runs preparing her for the slog ahead.
She has no complaints, though, even if last season must have felt interminable – Brighton’s campaign extended all the way to the last day of May after they reached the FA Cup final, and then there was that World Cup qualifying group campaign with But the 30-year-old will go into the new season with a spring in her step after, arguably, the finest few months of her career. And that would have felt like a distant prospect after her initial struggles for game-time at Brighton when she joined from Celtic in January last year – a struggle that ultimately saw her lose her place in the Irish team.
“There was definitely a level of impostor syndrome,” she says of her move to the WSL, “sitting on the bench, thinking ‘maybe I’m not good enough’. ” And having been one of the first names on Eileen Gleeson’s team-sheet after her Irish debut towards the tail end of 2023, her club predicament led to her being dropped byFAI Cup: Shamrock Rovers overcome Cork City after extra-time“It’s the greatest pride of my life to play for Ireland.
Some people maybe question whether it means as much, because obviously I’ve got this accent and I was brought up in England. But I think that makes me want to prove that it means just as much, if not more, because I always feel like there’s a sense of fighting to be accepted or to belong. That’s not with everyone, of course, just a few silly things that you read on Twitter.
” But even the Twitter brigade would have been happy that Hayes belongs to Ireland after her performances at the heart of the defence in that group phase, having regained her place once she established herself at Brighton. She was, as Ward put it, “outstanding” in the games against France, the Netherlands and Poland.
So too was Emily Murphy during the campaign, and she might well end up as a clubmate of Hayes next season with talk of a move from Newcastle to Brighton. If she takes time to bed in, no better woman than Hayes to advise her.
“It’s said that I’ve taken the scenic route in my career,” she laughs. “Instead of the motorway, I took the country road – it took a bit longer, but there have been views along the way. I wouldn’t change that. ” The journey, she hopes, will take her and Ireland to the World Cup in Brazil next summer.
First up, Kazakhstan in the playoffs and, if they get through that, Belgium or Poland in the qualifying decider.
“The best is yet to come from this Irish team,” she says, “I’m certain about that. ”FAI Cup: Shamrock Rovers overcome Cork City after extra-timeBrenda Fricker: ‘It was real violence, and I needed protection. Where was my father?
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