Vera Pauw: The players feared for their bodies

It had been a quiet couple of days in Brisbane leading into the Republic of Ireland's behind-closed-doors warm-up game against Colombia on Friday.

The squad enjoyed an open training on Wednesday, with manager Vera Pauw in relaxed mood. No fresh injuries, everything going according to plan.

But things took a turn during what was supposed to be a low-key runout.

Pauw had planned to use two completely different teams in each half against the Colombians as she looked to finetune the gameplan for Ireland's mammoth World Cup opener against Australia, while giving other squad members valuable minutes to stay sharp.

After 20 minutes, Ireland asked for the game to be abandoned. The Colombians' overly robust approach from the off had Pauw fearing the worst, and those fears were realised when a bad tackle left Denise O'Sullivan nursing a painful shin injury.

"After we finished the game I brought them in and I told them I was so proud of them."

Pauw now faces an anxious 48 hours to see how the injury settles down [it's soft tissue damage rather than a fracture], and while Ireland are hopeful O'Sullivan will face the Aussies, there's no guarantee that will be the case.

Speaking to the media at the team's hotel on Saturday, Pauw explained just how things escalated.

"At first, there was a huge challenge on Ruesha [Littlejohn]," she said.

"We ourselves as a team play within the rules of the game, a very tough-playing team. This was out of the rules of the game. It took minutes before the game started again. I was actually thinking, 'what is going on on that pitch, why do we not play?'.

"But within two minutes, there was this challenge on Denise. So it was a build-up of, this is not going right, this is going really wrong. That challenge, she was