I PRAY AND THEN IT IS ALL WRITE

Sinead reveals how she copes with her heartbreaking journey to Oz

- MARK MCCADDEN

FOOTBALL, her journal and the Bible – these are the three things Sinead Farrelly treasures more than anything right now. 

A holy trinity of sorts. She tells us, in the sunlit lobby of Ireland’s World Cup base in Brisbane, how she picked up her pen after last Thursday’s defeat to Australia and started scribbling.

“After the game I wrote in the journal for a long time. It’s really helpful for me to do almost affirmation at times,” she said.

“Because my mind will lie to me and tell me, you know it’s your fault the team lost or something.

“So I just have to write over and over again. ‘It’s not your fault we lost! It’s not your fault we lost!’.”

The reasons why she has to convince herself that she belongs here, at a World Cup, at the age of 33, and after an eight-year absence from the game, are heartbreaking.

First there was a 2015 car crash that resulted in serious back and neck injuries. Her career, it seemed, was over.