Eileen Gleeson ‘battening down the hatches’ on noise

EYES ON GAME: Eileen Gleeson and Aoife Mannion were offering their opinions on the Carrow Road sideline, the first reaction from the current camp since the revelations. Pic:©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

An arduous task as it is against the European champions, Ireland’s women will try their damnedest to brighten the mood in a desperately dark week.

Some of the squad got to see what a cohort of their foremothers had to allegedly endure in the 1990s when they watched Sunday’s documentary.

The following day their build-up to the qualifier in Norwich was punctuated by a meeting with the FAI’s chief executive and HR director on the subject of safeguarding.

By Wednesday afternoon, belated news of the men’s team manager landed. To sceptics, the timing was deliberate in a trying week for the FAI, an accusation they devoted a chunk of time to debunking at Heimir Hallgrímsson’s unveiling.

Simultaneously, Eileen Gleeson and Aoife Mannion were offering their opinions on the Carrow Road sideline, the first reaction from the current camp since the revelations.

“It was deeply, deeply upsetting for me to hear the girls, some of whom I’d have known at the time, and it is ground zero.

“It’s been a dark week with the revelations and the players have had to deal with that as players, as women and me as a coach as a woman.

“We’ve been trying to deal with that and support the players around that, but drag focus to the games.

“For us, we’re trying to minimise distractions this week.

“There’s media here. If you want to ask anything about the game and get the messaging around that and not focus on clashes of announcements because there’s not anything that it changes for us.

“It's about battening down the hatches and taking the white noise around away from the players.

“We have enough to deal with the two games we face, against England here and France in Cork next Tuesday, so it is tunnel-vision towards the games.” 

Justification for diverting the attention back onto the men’s squad was watery back in Dublin. A number of factors appeared to morph into one when the subject was probed.

“I know there were question marks over why we went today,” said David Courell, the interim chief executive.

“We didn’t want to go head-to-head with the women’s national team fixtures.

“This is a two-stage announcement and we wanted to give Heimir as much advance preparation time ahead of September. We couldn’t wait unfortunately.” 

Women’s football will dominate, once the ball is kicked in Norfolk. A first women’s senior qualifier between the nations since 1986, the first in the post Good Friday agreement, is significant in a historical context. Furthermore, there’s jeopardy at play for divergent reasons.

England are jostling with Sweden and France in a triangular battle for two automatic places at next year’s Euros. For Ireland to navigate an easier path to Switzerland, via the playoffs later in the year, moving off zero points and goal in these concluding matches is imperative.

Should Poland extract a point from Austria in the 5pm kick-off, then Ireland are facing an unseeded status in the second and final matches of those winter playoffs.

They tackle England without two regulars, suspended captain Katie McCabe and striker Kyra Carusa, ruled out of the two matches with injury.

“We know England is a team that likes to dominate possession,” Gleeson said of the team that won 2-0 in the reverse fixture in April, the first qualifier held at Lansdowne Road.

“They’re really efficient with it, very progressive, lots of nice midfield and wide rotations.

“We’re expecting more of the same, to go and be aggressively trying to take three points.” 

Sarina Wiegman was slightly subdued following her native Netherlands losing to her employers on Thursday but bullish about the women sustaining their tag as a global powerhouse.

“We started well in Dublin and could have scored two goals before we did,” said the boss who has claimed gold at the last two Euro finals.

“Ireland did some different things in the second-half, and also in shape, but we were focusing on having a quick start, and hopefully a quick goal too.

“And then keep up that level. We want to dominate the game, not only for 45 minutes, but the entire game regardless of what our opponents try to do.

“We prepare for everything – Megan Campbell’s throw-ins are more dangerous than corners.

“We know what they did in the last couple of games, we are prepared for that and we will then impose our style and hope to dominate the game. That’s what we want.”