Eileen Gleeson would be a good poker player. She was out in front of media for the first time this morning as part of the build up to Saturday’s historic game at the Aviva Stadium against Northern Ireland and she never missed a beat when the inevitable questions rained down about her predecessor Vera Pauw.

Gleeson served as an assistant to Pauw during the first two years of her reign before heading to become Head Coach at Glasgow City and then earlier this year to become Head of Women’s and Girls Football at the FAI.

“I wasn’t part of the review of the World Cup or the decision about management,” she said with a straight face, not willing to dive into any commentary on what had gone before, focused only on the now and the next.

“There is no escaping the elephant in the room or what’s gone on and the noise that’s around the camp. We had a brief discussion about it but the focus is on our performance in the Nations League campaign, on Saturday and on moving forward.”

“We know it is going to be special and we want to have a positive vibe about the place.”

That positivity needs to stretch beyond the 22 players in the squad and we asked Gleeson about how she divides her headspace between this interim role as Head Coach and the longer term focus of the day job looking after the future of the game from a broad female perspective.

“I’ve no problem with that at all,” she said. “What we do on Saturday will have an impact on all the girls and the women that are there in what will be a crowd of over 30,000.”

“I want to see more women playing and more women at every level of the game, in leadership roles and wanting to be involved.”

“Taking on the role of Head of Women’s and Girls Football was a dream job and it still is. Shaping the way in which the game can be driven forward and opening doors for more women to be involved on and off the pitch is really exciting.”

These are the moments when pictures can be painted in young girls imaginations of what it means to be involved.

Gleeson is the right person with the right passion and the right understanding of how to deliver to be in charge of that nurturing of dreams and creation of pathways.

It is nonetheless important that she will also be visible on the sidelines on Saturday alongside the new Northern Ireland manager Tanya Oxtoby.

Women seeing women walking the walk on the biggest of stages is an important part of sport growing into a place of genuine equality.

When the stands are empty though on Saturday after the final whistle, and hopefully a lap of honour and a similar engagement with the fans as was a hallmark of Tallaght Stadium, it needs the right people in place behind the scenes to capture that magic and make it real for the thousands as well as the few who get to pull on the jersey.

Finding the right people to do both roles is one of the challenges that the FAI needs to get right, making sure not to take away from one to boost the other.