28-05-2025
Teen sensation is on right track to be Northern Ireland's new number one, insists youth coach
She's talked the talk for a few years. She carries a confidence and self-belief that belies her tender age and she's produced performances to match.
All that mixed together has led to Abbie Smith arriving in exactly the place where she'd aimed to be even before she reached her teens.
The young goalkeeper is living a teenage dream after being named in the Northern Ireland senior international squad for the first time three months before her 17th birthday and so soon after earning a move from Crusaders Strikers to the Manchester City Academy earlier this year.
None of Smith's achievements have come as a surprise to the coach who has overseen so much of her development, and Heather Mearns, who first saw her as a 12-year-old, has every faith in the youngster to step up if Tanya Oxtoby needs to call upon her in the Nations League battles against Poland and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
'From she was no age Abbie would have told you 'I'm going across to England to play and I'm going to be number one for Northern Ireland',' said Mearns, the head of coaching and Under-19s coach with Crusaders Strikers.
Part one of that has been achieved and Smith is now a further step along the journey to making the second part come true too.
It hasn't happened by chance.
'Abbie was always really confident. Always the loudest one on the pitch and, for a goalkeeper being so young, she really understood the game so she was able to organise girls,' said Mearns.
'We've actually talked a lot recently about there being a lot of girls who were really talented at that age who are still really talented, but the mindset is so different.
'Abbie has always been so, so driven. She has always done that bit more extra than a lot of the other girls.
'We're a really small country, a lot of the girls are talented and it's easy for them and they always get picked and they never really have to be that driven up to a certain point, but she's always had that that mindset.
'Everything she has done has backed that up.'
Jackie Burns' status as Northern Ireland's long-established number one is reflected in the fact that she has started every game she's been available for since 2020.
With no experienced back-up to speak of, and both Smith and her namesake Kate from Lisburn Rangers – who is also in the senior squad for the first time – being uncapped, Burns is sure to start in the crunch top of the group clash with Poland at Seaview on Friday.
Who gets thrown in at the deep end in an emergency is maybe something we never find out, but sooner or later Burns will have competition for the gloves.
'I definitely think Abbie confident enough if she is needed,' said Mearns.
'I don't think she's the type of kid who's going to go on and panic with nerves. If that does happen she'll take everything in her stride and she'll do what she can.
'I think she's a future Northern Ireland number one and I think you'll find it hard to find anybody that disagrees.'
