The absences of Laura Rafferty, Ellie Mason and Rachel Dugdale have paved the way for the welcome return of 38-year-old Durham centre-back Sarah McFadden.<\/p>\n
The 106-cap defender has not featured for NI since February 2024 after returning from a long injury lay-off and from giving birth to her second child just six months ago.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The worrisome thing for Northern Ireland is that McFadden has one more cap than the five other defenders listed in the latest squad combined.<\/p>\n
The inclusions of Birmingham City duo Rebecca McKenna and Rebecca Holloway were always a given.<\/p>\n
McKenna is one of the first names on the team sheet, making the right-back berth her own and racking up 55 caps at just 24.<\/p>\n
Holloway is another who has been a regular starter under Oxtoby, either at left-back or as the left-sided centre-back in a three when needed.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
That may just be the role she is tasked with playing against Iceland due to the dearth of options NI have available at the moment.<\/p>\n
The other three defenders listed have fewer than 10 caps each and, while different ages, all are still really in the infancy of their international careers.<\/p>\n
Linfield defender Abi Sweetlove is the least experienced, with her sole cap coming in the 4-0 defeat against Poland at Seaview in May in what was a baptism of fire for the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Then there is Nottingham Forest’s Nat Johnson, who has added five more NI caps since her debut against Croatia last year, steadily growing in stature in the squad through 2025 when filling in at full-back and centre-back.<\/p>\n
Finally, there is Aberdeen’s Toni-Leigh Finnegan, who won the last of her eight caps in February 2024.<\/p>\n
A regular for her Scottish side, she is equally adept at playing centre-back or in holding midfield, where she starred for Cliftonville before her move across the water.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The absences of Laura Rafferty, Ellie Mason and Rachel Dugdale have paved the way for the welcome return…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[168756,1144,145528,168906,168907,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-518551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-laura-rafferty","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-rachel-dugdale","11":"tag-rebecca-holloway","12":"tag-sarah-mcfadden","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115415554037798673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518551","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=518551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}