This year she took on the role of Women’s Football Development Manager with New Zealand Football, a position that allows her to continue building the pathway for women’s football she helped create during her days as a player.
The 10th edition of the OFC Women’s Nations Cup is just around the corner providing the perfect moment for Jackman to reflect on her memories of the long-running competition and the unbelievable feeling of qualifying for a FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“I have some good and some interesting memories of the last OFC women’s qualifying tournament in Papua New Guinea,” Jackman recalls.
“When we, the New Zealand team, goes to places like Papua New Guinea it really gels us as a team I guess because of the environment. You can’t get out too much so it really bonds us and we have to come up with different things to pass the time.
“The climate is always a little hard to get used to and then just playing the island nations. You think for New Zealand it must be easy, but it’s not to be honest.”
Jackman says the feeling she got when New Zealand qualified for their second world cup, and her first, is indescribable.
“I think my best memory of any OFC tournament I took part in was qualifying for the 2007 Women’s World Cup. Obviously Australia had moved out of the Confederation and we always struggled to beat them, but it gave us a lot more opportunity to be the next better team.
“When we finally did qualify for that 2007 Women’s World Cup it was a really good feeling. It was in Papua New Guinea and I remember some of the girls with heat exhaustion, they’d just put everything out on the field and then to get that final whistle to go and everyone just came together – it was a great feeling.”
Aside from remembering the qualifying process, Jackman says the next step is out of this world.
“The pride that you feel to be on the world stage and representing your country was just mind blowing for me,” she remembers.
“China 2007 was the first world cup that I had been to and just the second world cup for New Zealand, so for all of us girls it was just mind blowing. My memories of China 2007 are just the massive amounts of crowd that were there.
“The unbelievable noise and support that China were getting, and we did play China in the third game, so I think there was about 60,000, probably Chinese people, who turned up for that game and it was just an unbelievable atmosphere.”
Back then Jackman was playing alongside a large number of players who remain key members of the current Football Ferns squad, and she believes that all of them still have plenty to offer.
“The Football Ferns today are full of girls I played with in 2007 so they’ve all had a huge amount of experience.
“They were quite young then and now they’re still young. You have Abby Erceg, Ria Percival, Katie Hoyle and they’re all only 25, 26 – which is still pretty young. They’re yet to hit their straps and yet they’ve had two or three world cups and a couple of Olympics under their belts so you can imagine it’s a pretty good team now.”
As for their chances in Kokopo, Jackman remains confident the side’s development over the past four years in particular has put them in good stead to qualify for their third consecutive FIFA Women’s World Cup.
“New Zealand’s always going to be a force to be reckoned with in these Nations Cups,” she says.
And while she is aware that New Zealand, at 19th in the world, is ranked much higher than their three opponents that shouldn’t be a reason for the Kiwis to let their guard down.
And certainly given how Australia kept New Zealand out of the running in 1995, 1998 and 2003 before they left OFC for the Asian Football Confederation in 2006, Jackman and her former teammates know that nothing can be left to chance.
“Anything is possible,” she notes.
“I think the island nations are doing a lot in their own countries to try and develop women’s football they just need a little bit more exposure and opportunities to play more as well.
“Every now and then we did get one over on Australia so it’s definitely possible. There’s always a little bit of unpredictability from the other teams and you can never really be sure of how much stronger they’ve got, and they are getting stronger all the time, and we’ve got to be mindful of that.”