Claire Shine hoping for chance to strike against Spain

If there were times over the last two years when Claire Shine wondered when she might finally get back to her best then the end to her first club season in Scotland will have provided welcome reassurance.

The 20-year-old, who is back home for the Republic of Ireland’s European Championship qualifier tomorrow against Spain, was a key contributor as Glasgow City wrapped up to yet another league title and she topped that by scoring all three goals in the cup final.

Her success across the water, where she plays and shares a flat with Irish team-mate Denise O'Sullivan, comes barely a year after she was sidelined by injury and struggling to deliver on the promise she had shown since she first appeared in Cork with Douglas Hall.

A whisker

She was the youngest member of the Irish under-17 squad that came within a whisker of a European title five years ago then made the quarter-finals at the

World Cup

in Trinidad and Tobago. She made quite an impact after moving to Raheny, not least with the quality of her finishing, and she got to play Champions League football in her teens before a broken leg last April interrupted her upward trajectory.

Her determination to play in the Under-19 Europeans barely 10 weeks later might be said to have backfired when her early return prompted another spell on the sidelines after the tournament was over. But, as she recalls, moments like the goal against Spain in the group stages that helped Ireland to the semis ensures that she has no regrets and about coming back too soon.

“I knew something wasn’t right but I never said anything which was my own fault,” says the striker who had first featured in a senior squad just a couple of months before the original break.

“It was kind of a bad decision but I wouldn’t change it because we had such a good run. Then when I came back I had Champions League with the club so I was going for two months non-stop when really I should have been resting. Then I was brought in again (to the senior squad) in August and that’s when my leg went.”

Deep down, she says, she knew it was coming and it has taken the year since to get back to the stage where she is a serious contender for Sue Ronan’s side.

The bench

Having watched the 2010 European final penalty shoot-out against Spain from the bench then scored against them last year, a run out tomorrow in Tallaght (ko 2.0, live on Setanta Sports) would be a nice way to kick-start her senior international career.

But the need for experience on the pitch against a quick passing, tirelessly pressing Spanish side is likely to mean she starts on the bench.

“I’m back now which is the main thing and hopefully I’ll get my cap....sometime.”

She is, she admits, wary of some of the Spaniards she had come across before with Atletico Madrid's Amanda Sampedro, one of the winning side's penalty scorers back in 2010 standing out.

“She ripped us apart that day and she’ll be playing on Thursday but since (the 2-0 home defeat by) Finland we’ve been trying to get back on our feet and I think we did with the (2-1) win in Portugal.

“I think that has boosted our confidence. In training the tempo has been 100 per cent and everyone is in it for each other. I think the staff know exactly what Spain are going to be like so everyone will be ready for it.”

For the moment, the Finns remain top of the group having played more games than anyone else but the Spaniards, Shine and the rest of the Irish believe, are the favourites to finish in first place. A result tomorrow, they hope, will at least slow their progress and, with most of the second-placed sides to qualify too, it might just set Shine on the way to another European finals.