![\"Ellie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/68effa26-06e2-400f-a86c-8e2c46ca735b.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEllie Mason is putting the recent advancement in her international career down to a strong comeback from injury that ended her 2023\/24 season in mid-March and a connection with Northern Ireland manager Tanya Oxtoby.<\/p>\n
International football has been something of a slow burner for London-born Mason, who qualifies to pull on the green shirt thanks to her late Ballymena-born grandfather. Until now.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old is about to double her cap total in the space of five months, and much of that is on the back of a second-half performance against Friday\u2019s Nations League opponents Poland in February having started each of the three games since in which Northern Ireland are unbeaten.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast season, I had an injury that set me back a bit, but after getting over that, I\u2019ve come back into the squad and it\u2019s taken a bit of time,\u201d said Mason.<\/p>\n
\u201cI trust all the girls, I trust Tanya, so it\u2019s a situation where I\u2019ve got to gain the manager\u2019s respect, and she trusted me in the moment to come on against Poland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played pretty well and, luckily enough, I\u2019ve been able to start every game and play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been tough but, hopefully, moving forward now, it\u2019s all good.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is such a good feeling. Playing is such an honour. It is just a great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ellie Mason says she has a strong relationship with Northern Ireland Women’s boss Tanya Oxtoby<\/p>\n
Another factor in Mason\u2019s stellar progress is being settled into a position.<\/p>\n
Although she impressed in a forward role while playing her club football at Lewes, that move didn\u2019t help her international career. She was used in attack in a friendly against Wales in April 2023 but was starved of possession and couldn\u2019t get into the game.<\/p>\n
Reverting back to her natural position in defence as Birmingham City came within a whisker of promotion to the WSL has been transformational.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was at Lewes, my manager trusted me, he put me up top and I was scoring goals, so why would you change it? You wouldn\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince Tanya has come in, she knows where I\u2019m good, where I play best and that\u2019s either at left-back or left centre-back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have regular chats with Tanya, she knows what I can do, I trust her. We have that good communication of where she wants me to play, and I\u2019ll always give my all wherever I play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now Poland are on Northern Ireland\u2019s schedule again, and with the group reaching its climax, the incentive is clear.<\/p>\n
A win for Oxtoby\u2019s team and promotion to League A becomes a possibility, and while the feeling that the 2-0 defeat in Gdansk in February didn\u2019t reflect the balance of the game lingers on, there is little need for further motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what they\u2019re about, we know they are a good team,\u201d said Mason.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve got some good individuals, but we look back at the last game against them and we know where we can be better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave them far too much respect. Yes, they were a good team but, then again, we\u2019re a good team as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellie Mason is putting the recent advancement in her international career down to a strong comeback from injury…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[8543,1144,8538,8542,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-138251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-national-stadium-at-windsor-park","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","11":"tag-south-belfast-sport","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114584699921804315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}