Naomi Donnan has no regrets about her decision to take a year out of football nor the choice of Sion Swifts Ladies as the club to join.

The defender was part of three title-winning squads at Linfield Ladies and starred at U17, U18 and U19 level for Northern Ireland, including a prolonged stint training with the senior international squad.

Combining that commitment to football alongside her physiotherapy degree led to her decision to put her football career on hold and now she is making up for any lost time.

Based to the east of Belfast, Strabane-based Sion Swifts may not have been the obvious choice of club but it demonstrates Donnan’s drive in re-establishing herself as one of the Danske Bank Women’s Premiership standout stars.

“Sion was a bit left-field for me because of where I’m based,” Donnan admitted. I’m about as far away as you can get from Strabane in Northern Ireland - and it wasn’t something I had planned, but when they approached me there was no doubt in my mind.

“This is a club who are competitive at the top level and I’ve loved every minute of my time here, but with the training sessions and the games. It is great to be playing football every week and having those girls around you in the same team make it so much easier.”

The full-back added: “Being at the club is a lot of commitment for myself and my family, but I believe I am improving as a player here so there is no reason to change that. Results on the pitch have been good and there is no reason why we cannot keep pushing on and challenging at the very top of the league.”

Donna was a regular in two title-winning teams at Linfield and on the international setup prior to taking a break to focus on her university.

“Linfield were my club throughout my youth career too,” the defender explained. And then I played in the same team as a lot of those girls who are now established senior internationals or playing abroad.

“Because I was playing boy’s football at one point, I was picked up slightly later than some of the other girls at international level so it wasn’t until Under-17 level I was capped, because I wasn’t with the county sides like the others.

“I always loved my time training with the youth sides at international level in terms of what you learnt, the girls you played with and the teams you’ve faced. “I was training with the senior international squad too for nine months or so, and of course it is the dream of any player to represent their nation.

“Kelsie Burrows, Megan Bell, Abbie Magee were all players I grew up playing alongside and it is fantastic to see what they have achieved now, but maybe I can achieve that too.”

Donnan will face her old club and former teammates in this week’s Women’s Premiership League Cup semi-final – with both teams eyeing silverware.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to win a trophy the season,” she explained. “The internationals being unavailable does level the playing field out – we competed with those sides anyway and drew with Glentoran in the league, but naturally it weakens those top two more.”

Donnan continued: “Both teams have come out of the blocks strongly this campaign and have improved on last season.
“It is going to be another big challenge for us – the league game between us was similar in being very competitive and thankfully we were able to get that late equaliser.

“Both of us will fancy ourselves of making the final and if either side was to get there, it is a massive opportunity to win silverware.

“Us and Linfield are on a similar level this season and Crusaders are in that mix too – we are three teams competing for two spots in the top four of the league.”

Donnan, who has missed recent games through injury, already has an enviable trophy collection from her days at Linfield Ladies but she is confident of adding to her haul at Sion Swifts Ladies this term.