Heather Payne was crowned the FAI's Young Women's International Player of the Year for the second successive year back in November. On Friday night, she will win her 50th cap.
It's something of an anomaly - Payne turned 25 last month - but few would begrudge the versatile Roscommon woman any accolade. She has been a diligent, consistently reliable performer for her country since making her debut as a 17-year-old back in 2017.
The Everton wing-back had the thankless task of leading the line as a lone striker for much of Vera Pauw's reign. In the last two years she's reverted to the wide role she looks better suited to. Not that the Ballinasloe native would complain either way. Friday's Nations League clash against Turkey will be a nice milestone, but Payne's mantra is always the same: turn up and do the work.
"I'm super proud," she said. "I mentioned it before, playing since Under-15s for Ireland you don't really think about 50th game, you just hope to make the senior team. To have played in a World Cup, 50 caps, it’s amazing as well.
"I haven't really thought about it much. I’m really proud but I just think of it as another game, to be honest. I don’t want to just stop at 50, I want to keep going and get as much caps as possible. There’s some players in the squad who’ve reached 100 caps. If I could do that, that would be brilliant."
The Tallaght meeting with the Turks is the dawn of another new era. In the wake of December's bitterly disappointing Euro 2025 play-off defeat to Wales, Eileen Gleeson departed, to be replaced by former Aston Villa boss Carla Ward.
Footballers tend to be a resilient bunch. The wounds of failure heal quickly when there's fresh faces in the dugout to impress.
"It’s kind of like a new era with the Nations League," said Payne.
"This is really important for the World Cup. Not making the Euros will make us want to qualify for the World Cup even more.
"Carla came to our game against Leicester City a few weeks ago and that was my first time to meet her. I didn't know much about her because I didn’t have her as a coach myself. I’d heard good things and she’s a good background and history. Everybody is excited about see what she can bring.
"I worked with Amber Whitely (Ward's recently appointed assistant coach) previously when I just trained at Liverpool (on a trial) so I'm quite familiar with her. Alan Mahon (assistant head coach) not so much, but I have heard great things about him."
On the club front, it's been an up and down campaign. The Toffees are ninth in the 12-team Women's Super League but have shown flashes of promise.
In December they beat Manchester 2-1; last weekend they were desperately unlucky to lose 2-1 to table-toppers Chelsea. Lauren James' 93rd-minute strike settled it, but Everton were convinced there'd been a foul in the build-up.
Generally, things are looking positive on Merseyside, with the women's team likely to play some games at the impressive new Bramley Moore Dock stadium on the waterfront next season.
"I live in the same area (the Albert Dock), around five minutes from Leanne Kiernan (who is playing for Liverpool). I can look out to see the magnificent stadium.
"We’ve always played the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park, so we’ll get opportunities in the new stadium.
"Over the past couple of months we’ve really progressed as a team. I think that result against (Manchester) City in December was a shock to a lot of people. With the big teams we’ve been hoping to get a result. We did against City. Earlier in the year we drew against Arsenal. Against Chelsea we were hoping to get that result. You could see we’re getting better and better, just unlucky in the end.
"That’s football. Everyone is going into the international break so at least we have that to get over it. We’ll be back again with a fresh start."
Watch Republic of Ireland v Turkey in the UEFA Women's Nations League on Friday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to live commentary with 2fm’s Game On
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