Shelbourne midfielder Rachel Graham says the difficult fortnight the team experienced in the SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division "fueled" them on route to an impressive victory over league champions Athlone Town in Sunday's Club Orange Women's FAI Cup final.
Shels went to Tallaght Stadium for the showpiece after two weeks which had seen them lose to Sligo Rovers and Shamrock Rovers back-to-back as they fell short in the league, with Athlone retaining their crown with games to spare.
Lily Agg's Midlanders were favourites to seal a double going into Sunday. But instead, Shelbourne raced into a three-goal lead by half-time before winning 3-1 and ensuring that they will end the season with a second trophy to add to the All-Island Cup.
Graham, in her 11th cup final appearance, came on for the last ten minutes and speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, shared an insight into the motivational factors that propelled Sean Russell's team to victory.
"Although it was tough having two tough losses in the league, it kind of nearly fueled us, a bit of motivation and the kick up the backside we needed," she said.
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"We came into training on Monday after the (Shamrock) Rovers game and had a team meeting and Sean put three questions on the board and left us all alone as players.
"We had to speak really honestly about ourselves in the last two weeks and how we were going to turn this around for a cup final and (that we) can't feel sorry for ourselves.
"So it was a really good productive meeting. Players said how they felt and (had) really honest conversations.
"But I think it was really needed at that time and look, it's not the end of the world. At the end of the day, we've lost two games but we knew our performances hadn't been good enough.
"It was, 'what kind of player do you want to be now? Are you going to let this crumble or are you going to turn it around?' So in a way it helped us. The opening ten minutes you could see the determination and we'd had a really good training week as well."
Manager Russell and his coaching staff got creative with some of their other motivational methods in the lead-up to the final.
"We had a team meeting and they actually went and got baby photos of us all playing football," she said.
"But it was a nice message because all our pictures were on the wall and it was like, 'What would your young self be saying to you now? You're playing in a cup final. How excited would they be?'
"So I think that kind of calmed everyone and reminded everyone that I do this because I love it, I've had a love since I was a young girl and this is the biggest occasion, the best day, so I think that just calmed everyone and made everyone more excited."
Meanwhile, it was a day when Shelbourne's youngsters shone with teenagers Halle Harcourt and Maeve Wollmer both on target during the first half salvo. The latter in particular was in precocious form, taking inspiration from something she saw on TV the night before.
"It was funny, she (Wollmer) was saying at half-time that she was watching Spain v England the day before and she said, 'I saw Lamine Yamal do something like that, so I'm going to do something like that'. She was excellent on the day and she showed her potential as well," Graham said.
Watch Republic of Ireland v Austria in the UEFA Nations League on Thursday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app
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