Ireland go old school against England in bid to reach new ground
PUT EM UNDER PRESSURE: Republic of Ireland head coach Eileen Gleeson speaks to her players after the UEFA Women's European Championship qualifying group A match between Republic of Ireland and England at Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Tyler Miller/Sportsfile
Memory is a slippery and devious acquaintance.
Ask it to take you back 32 years and it’s liable to lead you astray long before the journey is done, but a cursory dig through this paper's archives confirmed that some of the images retained from a dull February day at the RDS in 1992 have survived the test of time.
Jack Charlton’s Republic of Ireland lost 1-0 to Wales that day. It was a humdrum friendly, the unusual venue the only real point of separation until the half-time break when a band of substitutes emerged to pass the time with a bout of keepy-uppy and an early version of the crossbar challenge.
Kevin Moran was among them, and he was sensational. The Dubliner was part of a gang that pinged balls off the bar from distance and nonchalantly juggled the size 5 around the circle.
The thought then - and one that has sprung to mind time and again since - is how Irish national teams so often play for real as if the ball is a grenade, or a cannonball to be fired.
Eileen Gleeson’s Irish side tripped the light fantastic in League B of the Nations League last year. It was great to see but thwacking Hungary, Northern Ireland and Albania is one thing, putting passes together against France, England and Sweden in these Euro 2025 qualifiers is another ask entirely.
Their first effort, against the French in Metz last week, showed just how difficult this is. Megan Connolly was composed in possession but Katie McCabe was guilty of a few strays and Denise O’Sullivan got stuck between a rock and a hard place given she is well able to hold onto the ball but shoulders the expectation of playing the killer ball.
Those are our best players. It’s a hard balancing act.
England’s Leah Williamson had a ready quip when asked how the visitors here would cater for Katie McCabe, her Arsenal teammate, when declaring that the Dubliner can’t do anything with the ball if she doesn’t have it.
Possession was always going to be hard come by for Ireland. The onus was to make more use of it second time around.
You had to think that Ireland were always going to be under the cosh for most of the evening. Take away England’s 1-1 draw with Sweden last week and their three previous results were all wins.
They beat Scotland 6-0, Austria 7-2 and Italy 5-1. All of them are ranked higher than the Republic, but a 2-0 loss was, if anything, harsh.
There were some positive early signs, not least one lovely dink of a pass from O’Sullivan to Kyra Carusa in a wide channel, and later in the first-half when McCabe almost cushioned a delightful volley into the path of Lucy Quinn near the England box. Hardly a surprise that those two have that in their lockers.
The problem was that these were outlier moments.
Too often Ireland played themselves into trouble when trying to create something. Ruesha Littlejohn hit two bad passes in the space of ten seconds, Lucy Quinn overplayed one on the break to McCabe and any number of long balls forward couldn’t even claim the status of contestable.
Other basic errors were made in the second-half.
Aoife Mannion killed one promising move by directing a simple slide-rule ball out wide to Leanne Kiernan behind rather than in front of her, and it duly rolled apologetically over the sideline. Ireland can’t hope to reap a full harvest while swinging and missing this low-hanging fruit.
As with their male counterparts, the question here is which fork of the road to take. Does the WNT go about finessing its attacking game, or does it lean back into traditional Irish strengths? The obvious answer to that is both, but they ploughed so much more joy here from the agricultural school of thought.
Campbell’s long throw was used as a weapon, just as it was in Metz, and the crowd of 32,742 was never more engaged than when watching a McCabe long ball arching its way into the England area. Caitlin Hayes must still be wondering how she didn’t score from at least one of these no-frills assaults.
Ireland managed just one attempt on goal against France. They tripled that here, all of them coming in the last quarter when they ditched any pretence of cosmopolitanism and reduced this Euro 2025 qualifier to an old-fashioned – don’t shoot the messenger here – ‘British’-style derby. The irony of England struggling with that was almost too delicious.
If there was one snapshot that summed it up then it was McCabe blocking Hannah Hampton’s clearance near the end and shooting straight at the recovered goalkeeper from a narrow angle when Kiernan was square and much better placed to profit.
Brute force and fury got Ireland farther than against France, but there is still a place for calm heads.
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