Brighton's Megan Connolly says family helped her to WSL

Not showing her midfield skills for Albion at the Amex as a full international playing for one of the top sides in the FA WSL.

Connolly played all sports as a kid in southern Ireland.

Football was her first love but she was reaching a dead end when she became to old to play in the boys’ team at her brother’s club.

That was when her dad Michael, himself a keen sportsman, set up a girls side.

It kept the dream alive for Megan and opened up opportunities for other girls to keep playing too.

“He will probably claim he was a footballer!” Connolly jokes now about the man who remains the biggest inspiration behind her career.

“He never played professionally, I think he just played for a local team.

“He did water polo and stuff.

“My whole family is quite sporty.

“There wasn’t really ever a doubt I would be in some sport, whatever it was.

“At my club I played with the boys team from under-sevens until I was ten.

“At the time there was no under-12 girls, under-14s, any of that.

“My dad said ‘Right, let me set something up’.

“He did this massive trials day, sent flyers out everywhere and I think over 200 girls came.

“From then on, he just had this group of players from under-12s.

“He coached the same group of girls all the way through.

“To be fair without my dad doing that, my journey might have been different.

“He set that up. It was a great group of girls he got together.

“We went all the way up through the years, winning trophies.”

Connolly, from Cork, saw on a recent trip home that the local girls’ football set-up remains vibrant.

She also believes her all-round sporting background helped her to a high level of base fitness.

The teenage Connolly looked up to senior Irish players including Emma Byrne, the Arsenal goalkeeper who had a stint with Albion late in her career.

Equally there is little doubt girls in Cork will follow her own progress now.

She said: “It has been and up-and-down journey.

“This was my first club, signing professionally, so it was quite a big step for me to get a feel for it.

“In the second season, I had quite a tough time with injury so it didn’t quite go as I would have liked it to.

“When I was back in, I made a step forward in my progression.

“As a central midfielder there are a lot of aspects to the game that you can never stop improving.

“Spatial awareness, moving the ball, one touch, facing forward if you can, making third-man runs in the box.

“Out of possession, can you do that defensive role well?

“Can you not get split in the middle?

“Your one-v-one battles in the middle.

“I feel the last year-and-a-half especially, being at Brighton, having Hope (Powell, manager) and Amy (Merricks, coach) and all the rest of the staff, I think they are very demanding individuals.

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“I don’t think Hope ever really compliments me.

“It is always, ‘What next? What can you do more?’ “Even if I feel I have done something well, it’s a case of, ‘I want you to do more’.

“I think that is something that has helped me with the club and at international level, that demand we see every day with Hope.

“I know she does it with the whole team and we are a team that demands a lot from each other.”

Tough love is nothing new for Connolly, who played college soccer with Florida State before moving to England.

“My dad was a brutal coach,” she said. “As the daughter, you always get it extra.

“That was something as well that gave me that extra edge, that my dad was the hardest on me.

“It was never a case of favouritism. It was, ‘You have to do better, you have to do more, be a team player, pass the ball, move the ball’.

“That was also something he instilled in me, being that all-round player, being a team player.

“My mum and dad are my biggest supporters. If they could they would be at every game. My dad would be on the plane every single time if he could.

“He is probably my greatest supporter and inspiration.”

Proud, too, no doubt to see Megan in a team who are not so far behind giants Chelsea and Arsenal in terms of league placings.

“We are not as close as it looks on the table,” she admitted.

“Out of possession, we pride ourselves on defending.

“That is something that has kept us in many big games with the higher teams.

“It is the in-possession stuff where we want to do what Arsenal and Chelsea do to other teams.

“Manipulate the ball, pull them out, create stuff.

“But I think the gap is shorter than it was in previous years.

“We want to be the best team in this league, without a doubt.

“That’s why we play. We are getting there in small steps.”

Occasionally they might even please the boss.

There is a photo on this page of Connolly and Powell smiling and possibly about to embrace after the landmark 2-1 success Chelsea last season.

Connolly, who scored the winner that day, said: “I have a good relationship with Hope and I respect her a lot for everything she has done.

“It is her job to demand more.

“When things go well, you can look back and think it was worth it in the end.

“That Chelsea game was also a bit of relief that the game finally ended!”