Tanya Oxtoby identified a culture change in her Northern Ireland team in the moment when they faced a potential hammering against the class of Norway.
Trailing 3-0 at half time and with potential another barrage to come after the break, Oxtoby learned a lot about the squad within just a few minutes in the confines of the home dressing room at Inver Park.
Two stunning finishes from Caroline Graham Hansen and a strike from distance by Tuva Hansen had Norway coasting after 26 minutes of the Women’s Euro 2025 Play-Off, with one foot already in the Finals in Switzerland next summer.
That’s when Oxtoby saw qualities that she has seeking since taking charge 14 months ago come through in the midst of adversity.
“What goes through my mind is that this is the moment we’d spoken about,” said Oxtoby about going 2-0 down to Tuva Hansen’s strike after 14 minutes.
“We spoke a lot about that we need to be able to be resilient if the momentum isn’t with us. At that point it’s certainly not and I want to see what we’ve been working on.
“We’re not naive, we knew what was in front of us.
“At half time the positivity in that changing room was immense. I’ve got to give credit to my players because the way they have handled themselves, their mentality and their mindset to want to continue to challenge themselves and not go into their shell was exceptional.
“I am pleased from that point of view and we’ll continue to grow and learn from experiences like this.
“I’ve been in environments where winning covers a lot of cracks within your culture, but at 3-0 down in the changing room everyone is still together, everybody is still wanting to challenge themselves and that real growth mindset of ‘let’s have a go’ and ‘let’s really try to get some pressure on’ and try to embrace that we are going to make some changes in terms of our shape, that’s 14 months in the making.
“So, as a manager, that makes me really, really happy.”
Guro Bergsvand produced a skilful drag back and finish to make it 4-0 midway through the second half and all but kill the tie as a contest.
Northern Ireland now go to Oslo on Tuesday effectively treating the second leg as a one-off game and an opportunity to gain further experience against a top level team.
“We’ve spoken about wanting to test ourselves against one of the best sides and Norway definitely are one of those top sides,” said captain Simone Magill.
“It gives that exposure to those young players. A lot of them have said that they have never played a team like that before, that’s the best team that they have ever played and it shows the level.
“We want to get closer and closer to teams like that. We want to be qualifying for major tournaments, well if we are going to be doing that then that’s the level of opposition we are going to be playing.”
Northern Ireland’s second half display, when they had much more of the ball in the opposition half than in the first 45 minutes, is now the standard that Oxtoby expects in the return tie.
With the overall outcome effectively decided, Northern Ireland can at least play with the freedom of knowing that they can have a go at Norway without the fear of conceding goals that will cost them qualification.
“We’ve got nothing to lose now,” said Oxtoby.
“For me it wasn’t necessarily about the score, it was always going to be about the performance, and if we got that right we might have had a chance of going through in the tie.
“There is a bigger picture for us. Teams like this is where we want to get to in terms of competing at major tournaments.
“Tuesday is another opportunity for us away from home on a massive pitch to challenge ourselves against a great team.”