Newcomers Shamrock Rovers may have made an impressive start to the SSE Airtricity League Women's Premier Division season but head coach Collie O'Neill feels the Hoops are only 65% of the way towards the level they want to get to.
The club returned to women's senior football this season after a decade away and won their opening two games of the new campaign, including a 6-0 win over Treaty United.
High-profile signings including Republic of Ireland centurion Áine O'Gorman, Stephanie Roche and Abbie Larkin had fuelled expectation about what Shamrock Rovers could achieve this season, even if O'Neill did play down prospects of an immediate title tilt pre-season.
But the first big test of their current standing came on Saturday against reigning league and cup winners Shelbourne and ultimately the highly anticipated clash ended in a 1-1 draw after Shels' Jessie Stapleton cancelled out O'Gorman's second goal of the season.
Speaking to RTÉ soccer correspondent Tony O'Donoghue at full-time, O'Neill expressed satisfaction about the way his side had dealt with the challenge of facing a top side.
But he was also pleased by how they did not allow the occasion and pre-match frenzy to get to them.
"We were actually trying to remove that from their heads," he said.
"We were saying to them, 'It's still a pitch with white lines, with a referee, with 11 against 11, don't play the occasion, we'll just play the game' and that's all we focused on.
"We did our work for this game like we would any other game. We didn't treat it any differently."
And O'Neill emphasised that there is a lot more to come from Rovers as they get up to speed.
"Even with that we're disappointed in patches of how we actually played," he said of the Shels draw.
"We're probably only at 65% of where we want to be at. There were patches there where we were really, really good and then there were patches when we weren't so good.
"So there's a lot of improvement to go on for us."
O'Neill also reserved praise for Jaime Thompson who netted a hat-trick last week against Treaty before setting up O'Gorman's goal versus Shels.
"She's been brilliant. I know an awful lot of people have been talking and highlighting all the players that we signed from other clubs but what Shamrock Rovers have produced internally between Jaime, Orlaith O'Mahony, Abby Tuthill and Maria Reynolds, they've been top class.
"They've gone under the radar but they're really, really good players and even when you look at their age profile, they haven't reached their best yet."
