Changing of the guard as Irish legend Emma Byrne hangs up her gloves

After an honours-laden career, Emma Byrne has more than played her part with all she has done to promote and improve the women’s game in Ireland, writes Liam Mackey.

There is an inescapable sense of eras colliding in women’s football this weekend, with the news of Emma Byrne’s decision to hang up her gloves coming just before the Netherlands and Denmark meet tomorrow to decide which of them will become European champions for the very first time.

Byrne, who has also stepped down at Brighton and Hove Albion, the club she joined in January after an honours-laden career at Arsenal, has been a fixture in the Irish team since making her senior debut as a 16-year-old in March 1996 and then going on, over the course of next 21 years, to claim a record haul of 134 caps.