“A WIN, SOME good goals and a nice halfway point going into Tuesday.”
Eileen Gleeson’s immediate reaction after Ireland’s 6-0 Euro 2025 play-off first leg win over Georgia.
Katie McCabe (two), Kyra Carusa, Jessie Stapleton, Marissa Sheva and Aoife Mannion were on target in Tbilisi as the Girls In Green took one step closer to their first-ever European Championships.
Tuesday’s return leg at Tallaght Stadium will be but a formality, the focus then turning to another play-off double-header against Wales or Slovakia. The winner of that showdown qualifies for next summer’s finals tournament in Switzerland.
A comprehensive win was expected here. Ireland hammered Georgia 11-0 and 9-0 in 2023 World Cup qualifying, while they sit 94 places higher in the Fifa World Rankings. The Eastern European minnows kept them out until a 36th-minute McCabe penalty, but Ireland hit five goals in an improved second half.
“I wasn’t getting concerned,” Gleeson reflected on the opening exchanges. “We would have liked an early goal, of course, but you just have to be patient in these games and you have to trust that we can score.
“It is not concern, you just have to trust that it will come and we knew in the second half, they would get more tired and we would move the ball quicker, we will tire them out again and create more opportunities for ourselves.”
“I think with these games you can expect a level of frustration,” she continued.
“You know you’re going to play against a low block with everybody behind the ball. We would have liked a bit of a quicker speed of play from ourselves, some more balls into the box. I think we kept possession across the backline a bit too much and we wanted those balls to go forward.
“In terms of them time-wasting, that carried through throughout the game — again, probably something you can expect when you’re in these games. We focus on ourselves. In the first half we would have liked a quicker speed of play at times and more early deliveries into the box. We wanted dribblers and one v ones, through balls, get the ball into the box more and quicker and I think that was all better in the second half.”
Gleeson lauded Player of the Match Abbie Larkin, along with first-time goalscorers Stapleton, Mannion and the returning Sheva.
She also hailed the “flexibility” and squad depth, with the second-half switch of McCabe and Julie-Anne Russell, and bench press, key.
The head coach confirmed Russell’s late withdrawal was precautionary after a bang on the nose, and the Galway United star should be available for Tuesday’s return leg.
Tonight’s result offers Ireland breathing space, but Gleeson wants more as she targets another professional performance in Tallaght.
“I don’t think we’ll relax. We’ll aim to definitely not be complacent and make sure we do a good job on Tuesday, but it opens up opportunities for some of the younger players that we’ve brought in to maybe get them some minutes.
“The aim is to win the game again with a good performance but it does open up opportunities to see some of the younger, less experienced players and give them some experience.”
On Slovakia’s surprise 2-1 win over Wales, she added: “Always expected it to be a tight game, Slovakia are tough, so it will be interesting to see what happens in second leg.”
Elsewhere this evening, Northern Ireland and Croatia drew 1-1.
No point keeping the talent we’re producing in the shed. Get them out in the garden so they blossom!
All for interprovincial ones, but actively dislike the fact an Irish international is going to abroad for game time in a position 2 of our 4 teams were screaming for a player.
Interprovincial loans were popular enough about a decade ago, but have seemed to have died a death recently. And they clearly worked. Off my head I can think of 7 loans to Connacht in the past 10 years.
Of the 7 Cooney, Roux, and Daly were in an Ireland squad within 2 years of their move. Wootton was in the league team of the year and was the league’s top try scorer. (Others I were thinking of were Gilsenan, Declan Moore, and Michael McDonald). I would note few went back to their original province, but so what if the opportunity or pathway wasn’t there.
@David Hickey: Do you think players should be forced to play at a team?
@David Hickey: maybe he doesn’t want to play for a poor Connacht team and wants experience abroad? Bristol also have one of the richest club owners in England so this might work out well for him
@adizlack93: Connacht wouldn’t be so poor if resources were spread evenly
@anthony davoren: IRFU ain’t a charity bud. They were a disgrace against a young Ulster team at home recently and that was nothing to do with resources
@adizlack93: Maybe. But that’s something the IRFU need to address. It’s a poor state of affairs when an Irish player would rather move abroad than play for an Irish team.
@Thesaltyurchin: Of course they shouldn’t be forced. But there absolutely needs to be more incentivised dictation from the IRFU.
About 15 years ago you had lads who were second choice fighting at the bit to get an opportunity at another province (Keatley and Sexton trying to get to Connacht comes to mind), but now you’ve 3rd or 4th choice lads happy to not play, or move abroad and nix the national team, over play for another province.
@David Hickey: Maybe but Irish ‘incentives’ can be quite punitive, and Irish rugby is effectively authoritarian communism, personally I think exploring options in freer markets would be cheaper for the IRFU and beneficial to the standards of players. We can send all the players west if we like, will that make for an audience size capable of turning a profit? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t either way its more money to spend.
@Thesaltyurchin: They are punitive, and that is what I am suggesting can be improved. A player was offered a loan this summer and was agreeable but highlighted the increased costs and time required for having to travel cross country to study/work and having to rent now, when they had been living at home. A small accommodation of a few thousand euro wasn’t afforded to them, and that was that. These are the blocks that need to be taken down.
As regards development. The entire purpose of routing professionalism through the provinces is to act as a supply chain for the national team. Professional and financial ambition is to be involved with the national team. And if players/fans think otherwise, there is something wrong with the system. (Which isn’t necessarily players/fans fault at all). Having players within direct IRFU/national team management will always be better than not for development.
Connacht Rugby’s finances are in healthy shape, so I don’t get the dig at Connacht’s profitability, except for the sake of a dig at Connacht. Or its relevance to players going on loan there.
@David Hickey: David Humphreys has already addressed this, he’s said he cant force players sitting 2nd, 3rd 4th choice at a province to move, but players that are happy to sit on a bench rather than move and get gametime and challange themsleves are players that the national team doesn’t want. Think we’ll see move of this, Deegan was in great form earlier in season, (I thought better than Timoney and Prendergast) but those two are ahead of him for Ireland as they are first choice and he’s not even a bench option and by not moving its cost him international apperances. The days of saying if you want to force your way into the Ireland is by winning your position at Leinster first. If you want international honours you need to be playing games.
@David Hickey: That’s the difference between a “loan” move and a permanent move. I am not sure what it is that puts players off moving, but none of the players you have listed went on to have stellar international careers. One thing a player craves is certainty and the loan move to England or France in the knowledge they will return is probably a compromise. Irish provinces will want the player to move permanently (I would think). Imagine if the Carbery deal had been offered as a 1 year loan – Munster would certainly have said no.
@Paul Ennis: maybe not stellar, but better than those who went abroad or stayed down the pecking order.
You can’t play for Ireland if you play abroad, or are 3rd/4th choice (according to Humphreys). So the alternative is to get game time elsewhere, and it is better to do so in an environment under the IRFU control and for the benefit of an Irish team.
@Paul Ennis: Whatever about the many other elements of the debate, the widely expressed idea – mentioned repeatedly here and elsewhere – that players leaving Leinster is a platform to international caps (nevermind a ‘stellar international career’) is a fallacy. If they can’t make the first Leinster 23, 99% of these players are not going to have a stellar international career, regardless of where they go. (Tadhg Beirne represents that 1%.) Until the IRFU introduces provincial quotas dictating the make-up of Ireland squads, it will remain harder to get into the Ireland squad than the Leinster one. They need to leave to have a chance of reaching their potential, no more than that. I don’t know where I stand on the wider argument, but watching Leinster v Leinster North doesn’t do it for me.
@David Hickey: Except Cooney, Roux and Daly weren’t loans. They were players out of contract who moved province. The same as Ben Murphy, Josh Murphy, Andrew Smith, David Hawkshaw, Jack Aungier, Jeremy Loughman, Roman Salanoa, Paddy Patterson. To name but a few recent ones.
@Stephen Nolan: You are incorrect. All 3 moved to Connacht on loan initially.
@Stephen Nolan: https://www.irishrugby.ie/2014/06/11/cooney-and-roux-move-to-connacht-in-loan-deal/
https://www.connachtrugby.ie/news/tom-daly-joins-connacht-on-loan-for-the-remainder-of-the-season/bp1182/
I’d love to see the IRFU become a minority shareholder or have some form of partnership with a ProD2 team in France for this purpose. What young lad wouldn’t be happy with going to Biarritz (for example) for a year or 2 to help their development.
@cian nolan: they would be non JIFF players, and would Biarritz really want players that will only be there a seaon or two? Would they not be better giving that gametime to thierbown acamady players that will be staying with the team, and they can even build a team and future planning around?
Like everything in Ireland this type of initiative is 10 years late.
I think people are over-estimating the number of players who are really good bets for inter-provincial loans. Senior squads are smaller now while injury lists are higher. Given also the dearth of props across the board, and that Leinster, the main (desired) supplier of loanees have the additional issue of heavy international absences and associated minutes management, there aren’t really that many guys who can be spared and recipients want. The Leinster FH surplus was quite unusual. (I also like the nickname of Harry the Spare, for which credit to the guys on the Molecast podcast)