Hayley flying with Eagles and Girls in Green

Kill native, Hayley Nolan, is enjoying an injury-free season with Crystal Palace as the Eagles are third in the Women’s Super League and in a good position to claim the second automatic promotion spot with seven League games left.

After failing out of favour with previous Irish Women’s manager’s Vera Pauw and Eileen Gleeson, five times capped Hayley is enjoying a good spell under new manager, Carla Ward, and is part of the Irish squad that will face France in Tallaght Stadium on this evening (KO 7.30pm) and Netherlands in Stadion Galgenwaard Utrecht on Saturday 7 Marck (KO 7.45pm). Both games are World Cup Qualifiers.

Speaking with the Kildare Nationalist, Nolan, who is joining the Irish squad, expressed her satisfaction with her and her club’s current form. “We're in a really good place. A couple of weeks before Christmas, we really kicked on, and we’re now at seven wins out of eight.” 

The former Kildare underage Kildare LGFA has endured some difficult times with injuries, but she is now on an injury-free run, starting in all but one of Crystal Palace’s games this season. “Every player wants to play minutes and to start all those games, and to play a lot of minutes is really important, especially after the injuries and stuff I've had,” she explained. “We've been winning games so I can't really complain.” 

Continuing, Nolan told us, “This is my third year at Palace, and I made my 50th appearance for the club a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I can get to 100, that's the goal, and promotion.” 

Looking forward to the qualifiers against France and Netherlands, where she will be joined by Palace clubmates Ruesha Littlejohn and Abbey Larkin, Hayley Nolan said, “I've played in two of the last three camps under Carla (Ward), which I'm obviously delighted about. I want to play obviously, so it's been great to be able to get minutes, and I'm excited to get back for this camp.” 

“The environment and the atmosphere are great. Everyone feels like they can play their best football. I think they're playing a bit more relaxed, and obviously, we're playing with possession of the ball. Carla has put an emphasis on that. She wants to focus more on the ball, possession work and I think we've been doing that and that suits me,” 

Nolan explained. “I think everyone knows that's more my game and I've been really enjoying it,” she added.

Speaking of those upcoming qualifiers, the former midfielder, now turned accomplished defender, said, “We want to qualify from the league, and I don't think we fear them. We played France last year, when I wasn't in the camp, in Cork, and we beat them. They have a very strong team, but we can beat them if we show up on the day.” 

Continuing Hayley added, “we’ve got some really good results against the top teams and I think that gives us a lot of confidence going into these games; we can compete with them and get points and results against big teams. I don't think we'll be going in there fearing them, but obviously we have to respect them.” 

 Hayley Nolan credits her family for being very supportive when she faced the disappointment of not being included in the Irish Squad for the last World Cup and exclusion from subsequent squads, as well as the injury challenges. “I think they're always trying to get around me and just trying to remind me that I am going to come back and I'm going to be fit, going to be healthy. I don't think they want me to overthink things or stress about my injury or not being picked for Ireland. They just want me to enjoy what I'm doing, and that's what I'm trying to do because obviously your career is not forever,” she concluded.