The Republic of Ireland squad spent a lot of the last week in camp playing 'Werewolf', which is sold as "a party game for devious people".
"It's kind of like 'The Traitors' if anyone watched that," explained Anna Patten after helping the team beat Greece 2-1 at Tallaght Stadium last night. "There are villages. It depends how big the group is. Six werewolves last night, a few extra players here and there, a few extra players who have a special role.
"But basically, if you're a villager, you want to kill the werewolf. If you're a werewolf, you pretend you're a villager and try to kill off all the villagers. And I would say I'm very talented at the game!"
Maybe the hours and days of light-hearted deception helped Patten to infiltrate the Greeks' flock of defenders and steal in for the headed goal that ultimately decided Tuesday's Nations League collision.
The Aston Villa defender admits it was a flawed performance, but stressed Ireland are evolving under a new head coach with a different vision.
"There's this more intense plan to try to play and use the ball and keep switching it," she said.
"It's going to take time, but that's something Carla (Ward) really wants to try to instill. So as a back line, when we do have the ball in our half, we really want to step up as a team and keep them in their half and have really good pressure on them. We're probably a bit more aggressive in that sense.
"I think we all just trust in our abilities. We've got to stick with each other. I wouldn't say we are a team that gets frustrated. We all get around each other if something doesn't work. We know it's a work in progress but I think when we have moments where it really works, that's what keeps us confident in this new style of play.
"I think when we come into camp now, we'll have more of an understanding of what Carla expects from us."
The Girls in Green had loads of the ball but struggled to really penetrate Greece, a team ranked 35 places below them in the world rankings.
In the end, it took a penalty - converted by Amber Barrett - and a superb Megan Campbell corner, swung on to Patten's head, that unravelled the visitors.
Set-pieces remain criticially important.
"Mahony (Alan Mahon) has worked closely with us on attacking set-pieces and we need to take advantage of the height we have," Campbell said.
"There's the quality of the girls’ ability to get on the end of free-kicks and crosses. We can capitalise and thankfully did that tonight.
"Mahony has been hammering it home all week that we must have desire to get on end of the ball. Thankfully Anna got to one but from my throw-ins one went out for a goal-kick.
"I was probably a bit rusty because I didn’t do that for club recently. Listen, it's good and we know we can be dangerous from every set-piece but need to score a few more."
Campbell is also confident things are gelling under Ward, though the London City Lionesses defender freely admitted there's been some teething problems.
"We wanted to try new things as a team. There have been parts of our performances we've not been happy with. Slovenia was a game we knew we needed to be so much better than that.
"But I think this (window), we wanted two wins, that's exactly what we got. We've just got to focus on Turkey and Slovenia at home now.
"If the manager asks me to step up, you step up. I wasn't too happy with my personal performance on the ball but I tried to battle hard for the team. I’ll go away and reflect on that."
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