InterviewNiamh Fahey on World Cup experience, LFC Women return and WSL aims

The skipper linked up with Matt Beard's Reds for pre-season training following her participation for the Republic of Ireland at the Women's World Cup.

Fahey's journey in the tournament ended in the group stage but she's now back on Merseyside with experiences to savour and the motivation to kick on in the Barclays Women's Super League this season.

Liverpoolfc.com caught up with the No.5 on her first day back – read on for the full interview...

Niamh, we'll get on to Liverpool business shortly but you're back from the Women's World Cup. What was it like?

It was unbelievable really. It was kind of surreal. Now that I'm back, it feels like a dream really that it happened. But it was a fantastic experience and I'm just sad now that it's finished for us.

It's bucket-list stuff, so did it live up to your expectations?

Yeah, and more, to be honest. The whole buzz, it's just unrivalled in terms of the experience. The Irish support that we had over there was insane. It was like a home game at times, it was crazy. I think in Perth there were 22,000 and I'd say 20,000 were Irish! It was exceptional and just the whole support throughout Australia, I couldn't get over it. People were waiting for us at the airport coming in and greeting us. It gave us a massive lift. It was unbelievable really.

It's back to Liverpool now for pre-season training, so how much are you enjoying it?

It's great. First day back now, so just kind of getting familiar again with everyone and meeting the new faces. It's a good feeling already. A nice fresh start and nice new surroundings [at the Kirkby Academy], so it's been good so far.

And it won't be long before you're travelling over to Melwood every day. How excited are you to walk through those doors?

Very excited for our new home and obviously how iconic Melwood is as a training ground as well, all the successful Liverpool teams that have been there in the past, it's a fantastic move for us. Excited to get in the doors there as well. A lot [is] happening.

You've come back to new faces as well, which is always nice to give the squad a lift...

It's great. It's freshening up and great to have some new, young, exciting players in the door. It should be an exciting season.

As a skipper, how do you step in and help them adjust?

It's just [by] being friendly, being welcoming. It's always been a good atmosphere here at Liverpool FC Women. I think it's easy if there's a great group of girls here that are very welcoming and helpful as well. Anyone who has come here I don't think has had any problems settling in, so hopefully it'll be the same for these new girls.

Looking back at last season, it ended up being a pretty solid campaign in the end. What lessons can you take from that one into this one?

In the second half of the season in particular, we got really strong, we were challenging the top-four teams, top five, so there's a lot to build on. So I suppose building on that and really improving. Focusing on the areas where we need to improve – obviously the coaching staff will go through that. But I think the experience of that first year is going to help us massively this year to kick on.

What would you say the goals are for the team?

I presume it's to try to get up there [and] up among the mix in the top four, top five. It's a hard task because they're well-established teams in the last couple of years but that's where we want to go. We want to keep pushing, make a breakthrough there. We saw our results against those teams but it's about consistency and making sure every week you're being a solid team, you're coming out with three points no matter how you do it. That's probably going to be a big task for us now this season.

Finally, you've got your first pre-season test this weekend against Birmingham City...

They've been back in pre-season training [longer] but I suppose it's a good test again for us. It's all about minutes and getting minutes in the tank and seeing where we're at. Obviously pre-season games are there for experience and practice but Birmingham are always a tough team, so a good challenge for us and we'll see where we're at.