Tanya Oxtoby 'proud' of Northern Ireland's second-half performance in defeat to Norway at Inver Park

Barcelona forward Caroline Graham Hansen’s first-half double sandwiched Tuva Hansen’s strike and Guro Bergsvand left Oxtoby’s side a mountain to climb by adding a fourth in the second period.

Despite knowing the difficult challenge that faced her side before a ball was kicked, Oxtoby was delighted with how a change in shape at the interval meant Northern Ireland were more competitive in the second-half after finding themselves 3-0 down at the break.

"I'm proud of the performance,” she said after the game.

"We knew that they were going to have quality and they were going to create chances.

"We changed shape in the second-half and we got higher pressure on the ball and I'm really proud of the performance.

"I've got to give credit to my players because the way they handled themselves tonight, the mentality and the mindset to want to continue to challenge themselves and not go in their shell was exceptional.

"You play good teams like that they are going to find spaces and we have to try and make sure we are managing those spaces as best as we can.

"There's bits there that we can continue on in our journey.”

Northern Ireland travel to Oslo for the second-leg on Tuesday and despite the tie being realistically over, Oxtoby believes the experience will provide even more learning curves for her side.

She added: "We continue to build off what we did tonight but we have nothing to lose.

"We go back to the fact from my point of view it was never necessarily about the score, it was about the performance and if we got that right, we might have had a chance of going through in the tie.

"We've got to keep focussing on ourselves because there's a bigger picture here for us.

"Teams like this are where we want to get to in terms of competing at major tournaments, so Tuesday is a great opportunity for us away from home on a massive pitch to challenge ourselves against a great team.”