Grace Moloney on improvement and the Ireland dream: 'When the national anthem was playing, I could feel my eyes welling up'

A competitive debut for Ireland 'meant the absolute world' to the Reading keeper. So why didn't it happen sooner?

Grace Moloney during a Republic of Ireland Women training session at the FAI National Training Centre in Abbotstown, Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

“I know the answer, but I’m hesitating because I don’t want to talk for somebody else.” 

This week Ireland manager Vera Pauw discussed the improvement in Reading goalkeeper Grace Moloney who, at the age of 27, got her first competitive start in goal for the Republic of Ireland in the December European qualifier against Germany.

Pauw added: “We asked also, what happened, it was within two months she jumped up a level.

“You need to ask her to explain further if she wants to explain further.” 

Moloney has been in remarkable form for Reading this season, being named in the WSL team of the week four times already. Reading have proved a regular thorn in the sides of the WSL’s big guns, with draws against Manchester City and Arsenal and a win over Manchester United.

Moloney has shone in those games, earning a new two-year contract and increasing her profile — leading to a clamour in some quarters for an England call for the woman who grew up in Slough, but has grandparents from Tipperary and Cavan.

In this week’s Irish Examiner A Footballer’s Life podcast, Moloney, one of the golden generation of Ireland U17 girls who reached the European Championship final and World Cup quarter-finals in 2010, discusses why it has taken so long to win a competitive senior cap, just her third in all.

And though she believes she was good enough to be playing regularly for Ireland earlier, she admits there has been a significant improvement in her form.

Maybe the best evidence of that could be seen two weeks after that landmark Germany game, when Moloney made what is now, for her, an uncharacteristic mistake, being beaten at her near post by Manchester United’s Leah Galton after half an hour of a WSL fixture.

“I went down way too early, way too early. But I was like, ‘it’s done’, just get the ball out of the goal, we’re playing, we’re playing…’ 

“We ended up losing 2-1, I came in, ‘yeah, girls, poor from me, I’m really sorry’, whatever.” 

Maybe she wouldn’t have brushed it off as easily in previous seasons.

On the training ground last year, Moloney’s goalkeeping coach at Reading flagged something about her mindset.

It was just a routine passing drill with Brooke Chaplen and England's most-capped player Fara Williams.

“If I didn’t hit Brooke I didn’t care. If I missed Fara, I was awful for the rest of them, I’d just get worse and worse and worse.

“My coach was like, ‘you’ve got to understand, people make mistakes. You just need to deal with it, put your hand up, and just get on with it'.

“And since then, my game has changed, just him helping me to just forget it. I think I’ve drilled that into my game.” 

 JANUARY 17: Kristine Leine and Grace Moloney of Reading collide with Jill Roord of Arsenal  (Photo by Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

That, a little perspective, and a constant companion on her wrist.

“It’s life experience as well, stuff that’s happened within my family.

“I love coming in every day, I’m first in and last to leave. I want to focus on every little detail. With the nutritionist, how I can make myself better.

“In terms of the lockdown, when the season got ended, it was obviously hard for everyone. I think you’ve got to use it in the best way that you can. I don’t live too far from the goalie coach and one of our outfield coaches, so I was doing sessions with them.

“And I’ve got this thing, a Whoop, it focuses on your heart rate and your sleep and your recovery. I think this has been a massive thing for me this season.

“I feel like it’s my best season to date, I’ve got my first competitive start for Ireland, now where can I go and how can I get there.” 

Instead of dwelling on that gaffe against United she parked it until the next day.

“We were off the next day and I went to my goalie coach, ‘I can’t be off, you’re going to have to come in and hit 50 of those from where she’s hit that ball from, until I just stand there’. Because I went down too early.

“‘I’ll stand there, and if you hit it in my face or whatever, we’re going to do it 50 times’.

“And to be fair to him, he came in and we did it and went home.

“Mistakes happen, it’s how you deal with them during the game, but I had to come in because that was just not good enough.” 

For parts of Moloney’s Ireland career, she felt powerless to improve her prospects. Previous manager Colin Bell simply felt she was too small.

“With Colin, he was really straight up and honest and said he wanted a tall goalkeeper. You just knew then, I’m not taller than Marie (Hourihane), I’m not taller than Amanda Budden. He just dropped me completely, so that was hard at the start.

“With Sue (Ronan), Emma (Byrne) was still playing then, and Emma Byrne being Emma Byrne, you’re not going to drop her, she’s brilliant.

“With Vera, she obviously has what she wants her goalkeeper to do. I don’t know, maybe I just never had the window, the opportunity, until obviously in December.” 

She mightn’t entirely agree with Pauw’s timeline of her improvement, feeling she  had done enough to earn the number one jersey sooner, and certainly to stay in the setup.

“Maybe at the start of Vera’s campaign it could have been different, but maybe she didn’t want to change too much, I can’t answer that.

“To be honest, I have a really mixed view on the last campaign. For me it a massive negative being dropped. I didn’t get it, I didn’t understand it, but it was what it was.

"I had to deal with it the best way I could and for me that was my putting in performances where they had to say, ‘wow, look what she’s doing’.

“I actually found it really hard. But because I played the last game, that’s a massive positive.” 

A lot of frustration melted away that night in Tallaght against Germany.

“I’m from a massive Irish family. I always had the Ireland kits growing up. Even now I’d get the tweets saying ‘you’re due a call-up (for England)’, but I’m just sending back tweets with my jersey on or holding the flag, saying ‘I don’t want one’.

“For me, it’s always been Ireland, since I’ve been playing anyway.

“It has been my absolute dream for absolutely ages, to start and get in one of those team photos with the likes of Katie (McCabe) and Denise (O’Sullivan).

1 December 2020; The Republic of Ireland team that played Germany at Tallaght Stadium. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

“It was really emotional; Even when the national anthem was playing, I was stood there and I could feel my eyes welling up and later my mum said, ‘you were crying weren’t you’ and I said, ‘yeah’. It honestly meant the world.

“The messages I was getting from across the country. My uncles in Cork, my cousins in Dublin and Drogheda and up in Cavan, it’s a massive deal for all of us, every time I get called up."

Apart from the result, there was just one other downer on a special night.

“The gutting thing about playing that game was that my dad couldn't be there. He comes everywhere, he was in Trinidad for the World cup, Ukraine, everywhere.

“So for him not to see that…”