AND NOW A test of our national genius at meeting a World Cup with hysteria.
We have met the challenge before: having built an entire economic and cultural policy out of Italia ’90, we then holidayed from all reason in Saipan by freighting a dispute between two men with a kind of national significance that not even the constitution could be expected to bear. (One Prime Time guest suggested a referendum on whether Roy Keane should ever play for us again, which would have literally involved amending the constitution.)
But good luck to anyone trying to extrapolate a sweeping, national story from the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Ireland’s tournament ended with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a sense of tempered disappointment. A valedictory 0-0 draw with Nigeria means Ireland go home with one point and one goal. It should not the mark of a country wracked by self-loathing to say we scarcely deserved much more. Ireland were landed into a fiendish group in which they battled valiantly, twice lost narrowly and took a point and a sense of justification from its climax.
That Ireland’s fate was sealed before today was dispiriting but that should be the chief regret. Perhaps Ireland could have been bolder and attacked a nervous, Kerr-shorn Australia side on the opening night, but the blunt toil in chasing the game against Canada showed that Ireland lack enough individual attacking quality to trouble the top 10 teams in the game.
Perhaps Vera Pauw’s emphasis is too defensive, but Ireland’s players didn’t do enough to suggest it’s holding them back. Discourse-wise, we are in a similar place as we have been with the senior men’s teams for years, calling for the shackles to be cast off while quietly suspecting that those same shackles may be all that’s propping us up.
The great positive of today’s game was the World Cup was belatedly given an introduction to the qualities of Denise O’Sullivan. Sadly peripheral in the opening two games, today she was liberated to play further forward with Lily Agg drafted in to play deeper and alongside Reusha Littlejohn.
This suggested O’Sullivan’s bystanding in the opening games was as much a product of strategy as it was the lingering effects of Colombia’s alleged behind-doors barbarism. Today O’Sullivan’s velcro touch and delightful, writhing guile returned, and her ability to keep possession under pressure gave Ireland stable territory in Nigeria’s half.
O’Sullivan added a second dimension to Ireland’s attack, joining the dots between Ireland’s otherwise disparate forwards. The sweetest move was a perfectly-timed first-half break forward to take a delightful Katie McCabe flick, but her through ball was wasted by the baffling lethargy of Kyra Carusa, who didn’t shoot but rather allowed the ball to roll too far wide of the goal.
O’Sullivan also brought more out of Heather Payne at right wing-back, lessening some of the burden on McCabe on the opposite flank. That she was stationed further forward allowed her a better sight of goal, and a blocked shot just after the hour mark was truly the closest Ireland came to scoring.
But there was also regrettably voluminous evidence as to why O’Sullivan doesn’t always play so far advanced. Some of Ireland’s passing from deep was woeful, with Agg, Littlejohn, Niamh Fahey and Louise Quinn all guilty of sloppy giveaways. Quinn’s was the most egregious, giving the ball directly to Nigeria in the early moments in a move that ended with Asisat Oshoala wiping a shot narrowly wide.
Courtney Brosnan certainly earned Ireland’s maiden World Cup clean sheet, her flying save to claw Uchenna Kanyu’s header onto the crossbar deservedly earning her a spot in the post-tournament highlight reel. Her development under Pauw has been one of this team’s biggest success stories, but that development must now continue.
Pauw’s future is uncertain, as her contract expires before Ireland’s Nations League campaign kicks off in September. The FAI’s Trappist vow of silence on the subject has amplified what the players have had to say – or, more pertinently, have not had to say – on Pauw’s future, with their lack of warm conviction toward their boss giving the impression that this is coming to a natural end.
This, on balance, would be a risk. Pauw is imperfect but she has given Ireland the means of qualifying for the World Cup. They would need to finish below all of Northern Ireland, Albania and Hungary in the Nations League to miss out on a Euro 2025 play-off, so the manager deserves a chance to show what improvement the World Cup experience yields.
The greater development has to happen away from the limelight. The FAI and the State must improve grassroots facilities for everyone who wants to play the game, and the mistakes of the men’s breakthrough 30 years ago must not be repeated, in which the sport was popularised but left choked by wretched facilities and limited opportunity.
The signs on this front are ominous. Grassroots facilities will, broadly speaking, remain a sad joke without full State backing of the FAI’s infrastructure plan, while the domestic league is not remotely close to offering a viable life at home for our best talents. Abbie Larkin will likely come to reflect on this World Cup as a fabulous shop window. Pauw also recruited overseas players out of pure pragmatism, and that this country is not producing enough attacking players of world class standard is hardly a song sung only in the women’s game.
But these are questions for another day. This World Cup has shown Ireland can produce world-class talent and McCabe has showcased it for the world to see, grabbing an opportunity denied to all who have gone before her. Those who will come next, meanwhile, have been given something to which they can aspire. This is a far greater achievement than scrapping a point against Nigeria.
They now know that it is possible to play at a World Cup, and it is possible too for the rest of us to reflect on Australia 2023 as a tournament in which Ireland ran into a force of gravity great enough to ground their soaring dreams.