Caitlin Hayes on how she navigated a challenging period with both club and country. Emma Duffy
“WHEN THE GOING gets tough, the tough get going — and Caitlin Hayes, you are tough.”
It’s something the Ireland defender’s father told her from a young age, and something she has had to tell herself this year.
“It was a childhood lesson that I had to remember,” says Hayes. “Times are tough sometimes.
“Everybody wants to be sitting in this chair and having these interviews, but it’s not all glam sometimes.”
The 30-year-old speaks from experience, having struggled with a move from her beloved Celtic to WSL side Brighton in January.
The timing, the distance and the rebuild on and off the pitch was difficult initially, but she is happily finding her feet now.
“All good things are worth waiting for,” she smiles.
“There was a time where I probably thought, what have I done? But as it stands right now, I don’t regret it.”
While Hayes grappled with breaking into the Brighton team, she lost her place in the Ireland XI.
Since making her debut in September 2023, she played virtually every minute under Eileen Gleeson but found herself on the bench in the early days of Carla Ward’s reign.
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There was confusion in some quarters, but with time and space, Hayes offers context.
There were personal conversations with Ward, rather than football ones. “I will never shy away from being honest about how I feel, especially when it comes to maybe the harder conversations that people are maybe sometimes not willing to have,” she explains.
“I definitely struggled. I was in no position to play. I wasn’t the best version of myself. I probably put too much pressure on myself with demands to be at a certain level and ultimately I’m a big believer in the player can’t perform if the person’s not happy.
“Uprooting your whole life from what felt like the love of your life at the time (Celtic) is very difficult. Coming in in January as well, a lot of things were stacked against to get on top on and to be the best version of myself. So I totally respect Carla’s decision to sit me to the side and obviously more quality came into that squad.”
Hayes with family after Ireland played the US in June. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
As Hayes navigated the tough times for club and country, she pared it right back.
“I think it was probably more to slow down, enjoy the simpler things, not necessarily try and get to goal 10 of starting for either Ireland or Brighton. It was just one training session at a time.
“Ultimately, I was in a position where I had nothing to lose. So to just really relieve myself of the pressure to find joy within the game and to do what football is all about, which is to make connections both on and off the field, create a community. And yeah, probably just to find my feet, to enjoy it.
“It’s simply football. It’s there to be enjoyed and it’s there to be admired from an onlooker and also a player. Finding that again was something that I think ultimately elevated my game.”
One helpful tool was writing in the Notes app on her phone before every training session.
“You’re going to be great today.”
Good, bad or indifferent, the positive affirmations help as she visualises success.
“It comes out when I’m struggling. I did it one year at Celtic and I was just writing down all my 1%s and if I gained that 1% that day, I’d write it down, which happened to be the season that we won the league.
“Now before every training session, I say, ‘You’re going to be great today and then it stays in there if I was great and it gets deleted if I wasn’t. So it’s just a way to keep myself accountable, to keep myself going and obviously to try and keep my standards as high as I possibly can. It gets deleted if I wasn’t good enough.
“And obviously I can see all the times that I’ve not deleted it. I can see past work before that I showed up those days and I want to make it like those days. So it’s my own motivation. It doesn’t work for everyone.”
She adds: “There’s no better honesty that that of your own. And I think sometimes it’s very difficult to be in a game full of opinions, but ultimately if you’re happy with how you’re doing, then that’s all that matters.
Hayes at Ireland training this week. Nick Elliott / INPHO Nick Elliott / INPHO / INPHO
“I am a professed working on giving myself grace in times where it’s easy to be hard. It’s easy for us all to pick ourselves apart and to say what we don’t like, but I think it’s very difficult to stand up and say something that you are happy with yourself about or like about yourself. So that’s why I do it, to remind myself that I am able, I am capable.”
Those prompts will likely be turned to over the coming days, as Ireland face Belgium in their Uefa Women’s Nations League promotion/relegation playoff.
With Anna Patten suspended for tomorrow’s first leg at Aviva Stadium [KO 7pm, RTÉ2], Hayes is in line to marshal the defence and win her 25th cap.
Ticket sales are understood to have been slow, but the centre-back is confident the decision to play at Lansdowne Road is the correct one.
“I’ve been asked several times, should we be playing at Tallaght in previous interviews. And the answer, from my opinion, is absolutely not. There’s a lot of girls that aspire to be where we are, so why not give them that dream of playing at the Aviva where they can see what they can be and if they work hard and dream big, then they can also have that?
“I don’t see any greater opportunity than to be representing Ireland on that stage. The empty seats I only see as an endless possibility of getting even more people in there.”
