Noel King will spend the best part of his first day as full-time manager of the women's national football team on a flight to Moscow as he and the Irish squad head to Russia for Saturday's opening game of the new World Cup campaign.
It looks a tough start, but it promises to get tougher later on with World and European champions Germany also amongst the sides battling for a solitary place at the 2007 finals tournament from our qualification group.
If the Republic somehow manage to see off their rivals then King may just have John Delaney making one of those impassioned "job for life" offers . . . you know, the sort that usually ends up with the manager getting the chop six months later.
More likely, though, both he and his employers will look to see the team build on the impressive progress made since 2001 when King took charge while looking, he said yesterday, to dramatically grow the women's game at underage level so as to lay the foundations for a considerably stronger side in the future.
"One part of the job is this team, the under-17s, the under-19s and the seniors," said King at the press conference where he was unveiled and the FAI announced the details of their dramatically improved support for the women's game.
"But another is the responsibility for developing the game and what I'll be looking to do is to oversee all areas of that, to help make things better for the girls and to provide a pathway for them to progress all the way to the international team."
Traditionally a distant cousin, who the leadership of the FAI had little interest in becoming better acquainted with, the WFAI has made huge strides in the last few years. Its chairperson, Niamh O'Donoghue, pointed out yesterday that last year's budget of €750,000 was a 15-fold increase on the corresponding figure for 10 years ago and the spend will continue to grow as up to six full-time development officers are hired - the final number depending on just how much of a specific €750,000 allocation for women's sport the FAI can talk the Irish Sports Council out of.
"Government policy in respect of women's sport calls for increased participation and performance maximization," said Delaney. "We believe that our plan, and the appointment of Noel King, will assist that agenda greatly. "The plan," he pointed out, however, "requires supporting funds from outside the association to enable us to dedicate the resources to the task. We have already submitted our plans to the Irish Sports Council and we believe we have a very strong case for funding for this important area of our game."
The increased backing provided to date has certainly earned a return at senior level with the team rising in the world rankings from 66th of 68 nations at one point in the 1990s to their present position of 34th of 121.
An impressive run of form last year helped to maintain that upward momentum and earned the Irish promotion to the top flight of the European women's game for the first time.
The inevitable upshot, of course, is that the opposition is about to get a whole lot tougher.
"It's a horrible group," says King. "I mean Russia won't exactly be a doddle, but then there is Germany who looked terrific at the European Championships there a few weeks ago. Switzerland and Scotland will be tough for us as well, though."
The new manager is not helped either by the fact that he is without the woman regarded as being comfortably his most accomplished striker, team captain Olivia O'Toole for the trip to Moscow due to family commitments. "She's a huge loss, but with or without it's going to be tough, we'll just go there and give it our best shot."
