Injury to teammate prompted Aoife Mannion's Ireland ambitions

CALL-UP: Aoife Mannion poses for a portrait during a Republic of Ireland women training camp in Marbella, Spain. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Aoife Mannion says she was compelled to realise her ambition of representing Ireland when her Manchester United teammate Millie Turner suffered a health scare.

Birmingham-born Mannion (27) is set to make her Ireland debut against China next Wednesday in Marbella after deciding to switch from her native England.

The centre-back had lined out for the Lionesses through the underage ranks and three times appeared on the bench for the seniors without being introduced.

She’s delighted to have changed nationality through her parents, born in Mayo and Galway, "We have a girl on the team, Millie Turner, at club level and one day she didn't turn up for training and none of us knew why,” explained Mannion.

“It was all a bit hush hush, and it turned out that she just randomly tore an artery in her neck and she didn't know if she was going to play again.

“Her recovery process ended up being about six months and she literally couldn't do anything, she was on a physical ban, she couldn't train, she needed to let this artery heal.

"I remember thinking: 'Why am I sitting around assuming that my career is going to go on for twenty years, why not step towards the thing that is most exciting?'

"For me at that point, Ireland was a change from what I am used to, I didn't grow up through the youth teams but that was one of the things that made me sit up and think - obviously I got injured around this time - but I thought, 'When I come back in whatever capacity, whether I am really good or not back back from injury it was my intention to make myself available for Ireland.

"Millie's injury made me think 'what do I actually want? If I could only play for one more year, what do I want that to look like?' Because one day you could wake up like Millie and all of a sudden not be able to play."