Katie McCabe wants more after her 'favourite year' in green

It's been a busy old year for Katie McCabe.

She won the player of the season award at Arsenal, captained her country to a historic first appearance at the World Cup, tweeted out an emoji that sent Twitter into meltdown and then received a nomination for the Ballon d'Or. No one could say it's been dull.

McCabe remains the beating heart of this Republic of Ireland team; a swashbuckling presence who routinely lifts the team to a higher level. She had one of her quieter nights during the slender UEFA Nations League win over Hungary on Friday, but there'll be plenty more opportunties for her to shine when the Euro 2025 qualifers begin in the spring.

McCabe briefly allowed herself to reflect on a fruitful 2023 before reiterating her desire to raise the bar again.

"I mean it's no question, it's probably been my favourite year to play in a green shirt," she said.

"I'm sure the girls will agree on that. Representing Ireland at a World Cup will definitely be the standout thing. But we don't want to just look back and be happy with that and be satisfied with that, we want to keep pushing forward.

"We want to make it a common theme where we're pushing and playing against opposition and qualifying for tournaments. As nice as 2023 was, we want more of it and 2024 is going to be massive.

"I personally think it's so exciting. We've got great guidance in Eileen [Gleeson], Emma [Byrne] and Colin [Healy] the whole of the Nations League campaign. As a spectator you can see how we want to play and not just sit back deep, we want to be on the front foot, we want to press, we want to create goalscoring opportunities and score goals and we've shown that over the course of the Nations League campaign."

"It's going turn it up a notch in 2024, so we need