Women's World Cup: Shiels calls for 'more quality' as Northern Ireland brace themselves for Austria
Kenny Shiels is urging his Northern Ireland players to show more "quality" on the ball as they prepare to take on Austria in their second Women's World Cup qualifier in three days.
The manager will lead his side out at Seaview tonight (Tuesday) against a team 27 places above them in the world rankings.
But Northern Ireland showed enough drive and stamina at Wembley on Saturday night against England - one of the best teams in the world - to suggest they could get a result against Austria, depsite the odds.
Shiels' side kept England quiet for just over an hour before the hosts eventually ran out 4-0 winners in the Group D encounter at Wembley.
And as they were being put through their paces at Crusaders' ground (see pix) Shiels spelt out what his players needed to against a team he rates very highly.
"We learned a lot from the other night,'' said Shiels. "The performance was largely based on high octane work ethic but we didn't produce enough quality to hurt them.
"I know we panicked them a bit as they changed their system in the second half, which was great testament to us. But we have got to do better with the ball this time. We didn't show the quality we can show. That's not a criticism of anyone, it's just the way the game panned out.
"Austria are a quality team, one of the best teams in Europe. It will be interesting to see how they do against England, because they are a quality team.
"They've got a great system in Austria, their academy system is fantastic and other nations are looking at it.
"We want to give everything to our country, we want to win the game and we must play with the commitment to go and achieve that.''
Shiels has a couple of selection issues he is monitoring ahead of the game at Seaview.
He said: "Simone (Magill) I'm not sure at the moment, there are more training sessions to do so I hope Simone can make it. I hope Julie (Nelson) can make it as well as she got a bit of a knock on Saturday night.''