Megan Campbell suffers injury during Ireland's warm-up for Slovenia clash

Manager Carla Ward had initially made just one change from Friday’s 1-0 opening win over Turkey.

Tue, 25 Feb, 2025 - 17:12

John Fallon, KOPER

Amber Barrett – the striker whose goal sealed World Cup qualification – has been promoted to the Ireland team for today’s Uefa Nations League fixture in Slovenia (5pm, Irish time).

Manager Carla Ward had initially made just one change from Friday’s 1-0 opening win over Turkey, replacing Marissa Sheva with Standard Liege attacker Barrett.

But that became two changes just before kick-off as Megan Campbell withdrew with a hamstring injury suffered during the warm-up and is replaced by Megan Connolly.

And they find themselves a goal down after three minutes.

SLOVENIA: Z Mersnik; I Krizaj, L Golob, D Conc, K Erzen; L Prasnikar, S Makovec, K Korosec, Z Kramzar; M Sternad, S Kolbi.

IRELAND: C Brosnan; A Mannion, A Patten, M Connolly, K McCabe: H Payne, R Littlejohn, D O’Sullivan, L Quinn; K Carusa, A Barrett.

Referee: Michalina Diakow (POL).

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— Irish Examiner Sport (@ExaminerSport) February 25, 2025

Ward said: “We use the word bravery a lot. We did a lot of work in the final third, created five in the first-half and none in the second because we knew that was an area we needed to zoom in.

“We say be brave, give a ball and take a ball. There were some excellent bits of that in training since Friday.

“On bravery, it’s okay to make mistakes. We want them to show bravery because that will ultimately allow them to play the way we want to.

“There will be mistakes, and that’s okay, and then it’s the reaction of how you get it back.

“Installing a little bit of belief to try new things.” She added: “I was a midfielder and like having the ball. You’ve got good players who can take the ball so it’s important we instil that into them.

“We had 72% possession against Turkey and there’s only one time as a nation in the last five years you’ve had more of the ball. And that shows that we’re trying to do the right things.

“But then there’s no point in having possession unless you’re going to do something with it.”