‘A proud moment for me and my family’ - Courtney Brosnan delighted to win Player of the Year award

It’s just as well that the Republic of Ireland’s opening World Cup game against hosts Australia was switched to a bigger stadium, otherwise Courtney Brosnan’s clan might have struggled for tickets.

“My parents, sisters, some cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, I’ve got a big squad, 15 or 20,” she says when asked to list how many personal cheerleaders will be in Stadium Australia on July 20th to watch the tournament’s curtain-raiser.

And if, as expected, she’ll be on goalkeeping duty for the game, her posse will be cheering on the newly crowned FAI International Player of the Year, Brosnan winning the award over fellow nominees Katie McCabe and Louise Quinn.

“It’s unbelievable, it’s a really proud moment for me and my family,” she says, the award earned after an exceptional run of seven clean sheets, four of them coming in World Cup qualifying games – none more momentous than the one in Glasgow against Scotland in the play-off between the nations when she saved a first half penalty from Caroline Weir.

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“I’ve seen it back a few times, for sure,” she laughs, and as someone who is “big into visualisation”, it’s a moment that gives her no small shot of confidence.

“Sometimes I look at clips of me in previous games that you just kind of flip through to get you in the zone. It’s nice to have saves and things to look back on. It’s just about speaking to yourself positively and looking at things you are able to do, knowing you can do them.”

“Everyone has their own individual thing before games, as a team it’s always about positive reinforcement, ‘we can do this’, building each other up. You want everyone in the best mindset on the pitch.”

Brosnan is the first goalkeeper to win the award since Emma Byrne back in 2012, the 27-year-old New Jersey native having established herself as Vera Pauw’s first choice ahead of Grace Moloney and Megan Walsh.

It took time, though, opportunities limited enough in the early days after she was first brought in to the senior squad by Colin Bell in late 2018. Having played for Ireland at Under-17 and Under-19 level, she was finally given her senior debut by Pauw in March 2020.

But she has started 18 of Ireland’s last 19 games, bringing her up to 21 caps, only sitting out a friendly against Russia when Walsh was given her debut.

Until Emily Fox opened the scoring for the United States in Austin back in April, Brosnan had gone just four days short of a calendar year without conceding a goal. This despite being in and out of the team at Everton where she had England underage international Emily Ramsey, on loan from Manchester United, as a rival.

“But working with Emily has been amazing, she’s an unbelievable goalkeeper so having that competition to push me every day, whether I was playing or not, helped me improve my game. And it was great to get plenty of minutes under my belt and get top competition in the WSL – it’s been a great year all round for both of us.”

She’ll likely get at least 270 minutes under her belt at the World Cup. If she can renew her habit of keeping clean sheets, it’ll most probably be more.