“I HAD A ball tonight, man.”
Denise O’Sullivan thoroughly enjoyed herself in an advanced role in Ireland’s 0-0 draw with Nigeria.
“I needed that,” she told reporters afterwards. “I had more freedom.
“To be quite honest, it’s my more natural position. In the number 10 I can just float about, get on the ball and not have to think too much. I really, really enjoyed it. Being in that position, I’m able to show myself a bit more.”
The North Carolina Courage captain says she did not discuss the positional change from defensive midfield with Vera Pauw beforehand, and would like to stay in situ there going forward.
“No, to be quite honest. She probably saw it herself from looking back at the video. I didn’t have much space in the six and I wasn’t able to get on the ball as much.
“The 10 is my natural position for Ireland. I think she looked — Vera, fair play, looked at the Nigeria team and saw that there would be space on either side of their six. They have only one six. Vera and the staff discussed that and thought it would be a good game for me to be in that pocket.”
O’Sullivan was speaking in the mixed zone, and moments later, Pauw was asked about the change in her tetchy press conference. She explained her side of the story.
“The spaces… Nigeria is very powerful, fast, turning quick and they destroyed Australia with their pace. So we stopped the pace and the spaces that that was creating was on a position where, in the pocket, Sinead Farrelly and Denise are the best players.
“And that is why we played that, with Lily [Agg] behind. She had to, with Ruesha [Littlejohn] open spaces for Sinead and Denise and the wingers coming over, and it worked really well. Many other teams close those spaces and if you have Denise out there, then she is just pushed to the side, as you have seen in an earlier game, Sweden, and we don’t get anything out of her. So she is in this system where there are spaces, and today, what we expected from Nigeria, we needed her there.”
Having been unusually inconsistent in the defeats to Australia and Canada, O’Sullivan was pleased with her much-improved showing in Brisbane.
She says the shin injury sustained in the abandoned warm-up game against Colombia did not affect her, her frustration with her previous showings shining through.
“It’s been tough. My last two performances haven’t been the best in an Irish shirt, and there’s no one to blame for that only myself.
“I hold myself accountable for that. I’m well able to take criticism, so I’ll go away and reflect on those two games but the girls are very supportive and tonight I showed what I can do — on the ball and off the ball. I’ll go away and reflect on both of the games, look back and really analyse it.
“When I don’t have much time to think, I think that’s how I’m a lot better. I finally got a shot on goal, at least that was good! That’s the next level for me now, getting those chances, number one, and then start finishing them.”
On the scoreless draw and lessons learned, O’Sullivan noted:
“Disappointed we didn’t come away with a win. Honestly I thought we could have got the win tonight. But I thought the performance was a lot better. We were a lot more composed on the ball in midfield especially, we sprayed the ball around. It’s bittersweet. We wanted to come away with the win but we got our first point on the board, so it is kind of disappointing at the same time.
“The first two games probably hit us in the face a bit, the intensity of the games and stuff. So I think that’s a big learning curve for us. We know now, we have a taste for it so the next time we want to come back and we will come back, that is the big thing we can take away from it, how intense it is, how world-class opposition are in this tournament.”