Oxtoby wary of Bosnia threat in Nations League game

Northern Ireland manager Tanya Oxtoby says she expects a tough test against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Tuesday night's Nations League encounter at Inver Park.

Bosnia-Herzegovina started their League B Group 1 campaign with an impressive 4-0 win over Romania in Zenica on Friday.

Northern Ireland are looking to bounce back after beginning with a 2-0 defeat by Poland in Gdansk.

"Winning 4-0, it's pretty impressive - it's going to be tough and we need to assert ourselves from the start," said Oxtoby.

"We're really looking forward to the game. We're at home and we want to start off aggressively."

It is a meeting of familiar foes with Northern Ireland beating Bosnia-Herzegovina in both Euro 2025 qualifiers last year.

"We need to be on our game - they caused us problems in the last two games we played them.

"We know what to expect but we need to improve and keep our levels high. That's the challenge for this group now."

Poland scored two goals in three first-half minutes to condemn Oxtoby's side to defeat in Friday night's opener.

Ewelina Kamczyk struck first for the Euro 2025-bound Poles before Adriana Achcinska slotted home to double the advantage.

A highlight for Northern Ireland came 16 minutes from time when teenager Kascie Weir came on for her debut.

They now face a side sitting 19 places below them in the world rankings but who arrive in Larne on a high after a winning start.

"They're completely different [than Poland] in terms of their style of play," added Oxtoby.

"From our point of view there were elements in the Poland performance that we were pretty disappointed with from ourselves and the standards we set so we're looking forward to putting that right on Tuesday night.

"We want to execute exactly what we're going after in terms of our process and give ourselves a chance to get a result."