Shin é - Denise O'Sullivan on Canada, Cork and Colombia

How does it feel to be the owner of the most talked about shin in Ireland?

Denise O'Sullivan puffs out her cheeks and tries to make sense of a wild week.

The Corkwoman, as tough as she is skillful, admits now that she feared her World Cup dream had been shattered eight days ago.

A late tackle during Ireland's behind-closed-doors match against Colombia left O'Sullivan lying in the turf in a lot of pain. Vera Pauw made the decision to abandon the game due to concerns about the Colombians' physical approach, O'Sullivan went to hospital for a scan, and back in Ireland the country went into mass panic.

"It was mental," says O'Sullivan, who was speaking to the media from the team's hotel in Brisbane on Saturday.

"The thing blew up. I didn't know what to do. It was obviously stressful seeing it all over social media because that's not the attention I wanted on the team, and for myself. I wanted to focus on the [Australia] game.

"But it happened. I was nervous myself for the next few hours, to see if I could recover in time, and that’s all I was thinking about.

"With Ange [Angela Kenneally, the team physio], I was actually shaking in the hospital because I was so nervous and emotional. But yeah, I mean, I got the results and I was able to relax a bit.

"I was giving absolutely everything I could to do that, and luckily I did and I was glad I was able to be out there with the team."

O'Sullivan was back in training just three days after the incident and went on to deliver a typically accomplished performance of grit, hard running and composure against the Matildas.

Ireland fell to a 1-0 defeat in front of 75,000 fans at the Accor Stadium but there's no sense that progression to the knockout stages is beyond them.

Canada's subsequent goalless