McLaughlin says Peamount United the perfect fit for her to feature in WNL

Peamount United player Erin McLaughlin believes her club was the ideal place to continue her career, having moved down south for college.

Having impressed during the Home-Based training camps, the 19-year-old Primary Teaching Student, is looking to impress manager Vera Pauw during their training camp in Spain, with the dreams of a trip to Australia in July firmly on the mind.

McLaughlin has been playing from a young age in her native Donegal, like most she first had to join a boys’ team, but as she got older, speaking to the media in the Ireland training camp she says she had the chance to play for both a boy’s and girls’ team.

“I started playing with Culdaff since I was like 5 or 6 all the way up and then I got to U14’s and switched to a girl‘s club it’s based in Malin head it’s called Sea Rovers, I was allowed to play the both so I played boys for Culdaff and girls for Sea Rovers, so that was kinda how it all started.”

The Culdaff woman made the move South to attend Maynooth University where she is studying Primary teaching, she was playing with Sion Swifts before coming down, but a move to the WNL was in her headspace but one she would not make until college was secured first.

“Like it was always on my mind but I never would have actually went until college came about, then when college came then I think it was just for me to go then.”

The move to Maynooth certainly had the biggest impact in her applying for trade in the WNL this season, she had an interest in finding a club to join when she was studying in the Kildare University, but when Peamount came knocking her dream became a reality of joining the Greenogue side.

“Yeah definitely whenever I came down to Maynooth like I was looking for a new club and I think once James came and ask me to train it was kinda an obvious choice cause Peamount’s such a great club like and it’s where I wanted to play”.

Peamount became the destination of choice for McLaughlin in the end after manager James O’Callaghan asked her to attend training with the Pea’s, the fit looks to have worked for both as she believes the club was for her.

“I suppose like it was always a club that I wanted to play for and like whenever James asked me to come and train like I was delighted to go training and as soon as I started training I kinda knew the club was for me and I think it took me a few weeks to settle in but once I got going then I was fine and eventually found my position and then went from there.”

Her first season in the WNL certainly was eventful as the title race went down to the wire in the end, Peamount missing out on the title not making it a four-horse race on the final day, but McLaughlin believes they will have gained a lot after this season.

“I think it wasn’t the most glamorous season like I probably would have hoped for better but think in the end it was a season probably make us stronger what we went through.”

The jump from playing up north to the WNL was not a huge gap, admits McLaughlin, having more teams in the WNL was much better than having to face a very repetitive fixture schedule the year prior, while a change of pitch surface is also a change.

“I found up the north it’s very like we play all our games on Astro Turf so there’s no grass, so I feel like that makes a bit of a difference but then there’s more teams in South, so you have like ten teams last year whenever I played in the north there was only six teams now it’s eight this year so it’s better but last year it kinda felt like it was repetitive like you’re playing the same teams over and over, but I think that’s increasing now they’ve got eight teams which is good to see.”

The youngster has played for the Ireland U19 side in the past and has been involved in home training camps over the last number of years, she was shocked to have heard that she was called up to the Senior squad, as she did not expect it this soon.

“I actually just found out whenever the squad was released, so it was actually my sister that seen it first and she called me over and was like aww look you made the Ireland squad and I was just shocked like but it was great to hear.”

With a World Cup now loaming and a squad needing to be picked, players will be looking for places in Vera Pauw’s final section when the World Cup rolls around, McLaughlin is one of them and will now take the opportunity to impress her manager and earn a spot in Australia, with a friendly against Morocco to come next Monday and another as yet unnamed training game fixture to be played.

“I suppose I’m so grateful that Vera’s given me the chance now and it’s probably a nice camp to be going into two friendlies, I can just show what I can do and hopefully great ambitions to be going to the World Cup so hopefully Vera can have a look now and see.”