Shamrock Rovers' new women's manager James O'Callaghan has called for more ambition in order to move the domestic league towards a professional footing.
His comments come amid a feelgood factor around the Republic of Ireland women's team.
Carla Ward's side boosted their hopes of reaching a second consecutive FIFA Women's World Cup after a Nations League play-off victory over Belgium.
That aggregate result saw them promoted to the top tier for the World Cup qualifiers to come this year.
Speaking at the League of Ireland launch on Wednesday, O'Callaghan gave his take on how the reflected glory from international progress could be cast onto the SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division.
In his view, which echoed his pre-2023 World Cup stance, that would be by seeing more Irish-based players called up to the Girls in Green squad.
However, that in turn would require more professional structures that would allow prospective internationals to be able to ply their trade domestically.
"You're always aspiring to have more players from the league in the senior squad," he said.
"It hasn't helped a lot of the younger players, because we're not a professional league here, they've decided to move away because it's their dream to play professionally, whether that's in Scotland or in England or wherever.
"It's a pity. I feel there should be more ambition within this country to try and create a professional league here to keep the players here.
"Because they're going away. It's a difficult challenge for them when they move away in terms of they're homesick and they're not making millions like their male counterparts.
"So if there was some serious investment made here and people had the ambition to look at that, we could have one of the best leagues in Europe here.
"And then you'd have an international team that would be full of national league players. So I feel it's just that lack of ambition for our own league at the moment."
The new season officially kicks off on Saturday, 14 March, after Ireland's qualifiers against France and Netherlands.
For O'Callaghan, it'll be a return to management for the first time since he ended a hugely successful eight-year spell as Peamount head coach in October 2024. That tenure yielded three league titles, including the double in 2020.
The aim now will be to try and replicate that at an ambitious Shamrock Rovers - a club very close to his heart since childhood.
"I used to go to Glenmalure Park as a child, so great memories. When Rovers came looking for me to come on board, I was delighted to accept," said O'Callaghan.
The last two seasons have resulted in back-to-back fifth place finishes and the new manager has moved decisively to try and strengthen the squad.
The most eye-catching of those arrivals is seven-time Ireland cap Ellen Molloy. The 21-year-old attacking midfielder has been one of the standout talents in the league across two spells at Wexford.
From the outside looking in, her exit from Wexford in mid-January caught people by surprise, as did her subsequent arrival at Shamrock Rovers last week.
But O'Callaghan said conversations had been ongoing for a number of weeks.
"We were speaking to her over a few weeks during December and stuff, coming into January," he said.
"We spoke to lots of players, lots of cups of coffee with different players. Because seven players had moved on from Rovers. We had ten players from last season, young players, so we needed to build a squad.
"So, along with Ellen, we spoke to lots of players. We've made seven signings alongside the ten that were already there."
On Molloy, he added, "We're delighted that she decided to come to Rovers. We felt a good connection with her. I think maybe she just needed a change and Rovers fitted the bill."
Other new arrivals include goalkeeper Amanda Budden and midfielder Sadhbh Doyle, both from Peamount, as well as defender Therese Kinnevey from Galway United. O'Callaghan is keen to add a couple more before the transfer deadline.
He is excited to work with those new arrivals. But the main target will be to bring on-pitch consistency to the club in order to close the gap to the likes of champions Athlone Town and Shelbourne.
"Collie (O'Neill) was very unlucky I think over the years as well and Steph (Zambra) came in," O'Callaghan said of his immediate predecessors.
"There's great potential in the Rovers set-up, really huge potential (but) probably hasn't reached the levels that it has hoped.
"There have been two fifth-place finishes the last two seasons. We would hope to do better than that this year."
