The dust had barely settled on the World Cup draw in Auckland when the Republic of Ireland delegation were getting into the nitty-gritty of their tournament preparations.
Ireland will face co-hosts Australia, Canada and Nigeria next summer in a very tough Group B that presents challenges on and off the pitch.
It's going to be a hell of an ask. Taking on the Aussies on home soil is daunting; reigning Olympic champions Canada are dark horses to go all the way; while Nigeria are one of the toughest opponents Ireland could have drawn from Pot 4.
On top of that the Girls in Green face a gruelling travel schedule that will see them start in Sydney against Australia, fly over 3,000km to take on Canada in Perth and then come back to Brisbane for their final group game against the Nigerians.
Pauw, who travelled to New Zealand for the draw, will spend the next two days mulling over potential bases for her side in Australia.
First though they need to figure what they're doing next month in an international window that offers precious time they must utilise to the max.
"We have good hopes of having games in November, that we find the money to do this. FIFA is coming with preparation money."
Pauw revealed that her budget for the year was used up for last June's training camp in Turkey, which was important preparation for the qualifier in Georgia. That was the priority, as Ireland felt they couldn't afford to take anything for granted and assume they'd need it in November.
FIFA are set to provide funds to help teams get ready for the World Cup and Ireland's primary sponsors could also contribute, but there's still work to do to nail down a blueprint for the next nine months.
"We're busy trying to find opponents," said Pauw.
"As you remember, we used the money to get well prepared for Georgia. Everybody was on the summer holiday break so that was more important.
"We have good hopes of having games in November, that we find the money to do this. FIFA is coming with preparation money. That is welcome to be able to slot in games. We're trying to find opponents and hopefully finalise that.
"So we have very good hopes but I know I had asked for the money to be used in June and I am not going to put extra pressure but on the other hand we have only three slots [international windows] to prepare, it will be very welcome, the only slot you can use to try out new players.
"We don’t know where we are yet. The good thing is that more countries are looking for games."
The stage is set! 🤩
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One of those games could be against an African side, while Pauw didn't rule out bringing in fresh talent between now and July.
"It's funny, when you qualify, suddenly there is a lot of players with Irish backgrounds. They email you and they weren’t emailing you before you qualified. But there are players that we’re really looking into.
"Don’t get me wrong, we see every player playing every single week because the streams these days are very good. But I will travel of course. We are going to look into players that just close to the team and see where they are.
"There are players abroad that are now showing up and we really have to look into, but they must have a very tight connection with Ireland. And the players that we have now on the sheet that we are going to look at already have an Irish passport. They have a passport but are playing abroad. We are looking into that."
Ireland will need all of Pauw's experience to guide them through their first ever major tournament.
The Dutch coach led her native country to Euro 2009 and also managed South Africa at the 2016 Rio Games. On both occasions her side faced the host nation: Finland at the Euros (beaten 2-1), Brazil at the Olympics (drew 0-0).
They'll do so again Down Under.
"It helps when you’re more experienced and know what to expect," Pauw added.
"But the key is that the players know what to expect. That is my task, along with my fantastic staff, including Jan Willem van Ede, Tom Elmes and our video analyst Andy Holt. We’ll prepare the players as best as we can. So far that’s gone okay.
"Relating to the task, getting the players ready so they have freedom of execution, is in my opinion the best way of preparing for these types of games.
"[Against Australia] it will be a matter of, can you get through the first half hour because they will fire off from the first whistle.
"We need to see if we can hold that and see can we put in a game plan and maybe we can hurt them. So yeah, pressure, they will feel pressure, but that will be for us also."
