PATHETIC FALLACY IN Perth.
The rain teemed down as Ireland’s World Cup dream came to a gut-wrenching end.
There were tears of pain as Katie McCabe and her history-making team-mates walked the pitch applauding the Irish fans who stayed until the bitter end.
A little under two hours earlier, she had given them their Moment.
Captain McCabe wrote her name into the history books as Ireland’s first-ever goalscorer at the Women’s World Cup with an outrageous Olimpico four minutes in. The roar from the crowd said it all.
Olé, olé rang out as it had done all night, another spine-tingling rendition of Amhrán na bhFiann setting the tone. And McCabe, who smiled from ear-to-ear through the team’s off-sync effort, brought the fight on the pitch with another all-action performance.
Canada recovered from the early concession, though, and were level by half-time. An unfortunate Megan Connolly own goal on the very stroke of it tipped the scales their way and tournament experience — including over 600 caps from the bench — ultimately saw Beverly Priestman’s side run out 2-1 winners.
They bounced through the mixed zone, the Irish left to swallow a bitter pill. McCabe, Denise O’Sullivan and co. spoke about mixed emotions; heartbreak, deflation and disappointment, but also pride.
“It’s hard to process right now,” Áine O’Gorman admitted, the centurion a last-minute call-up to the XI after Heather Payne pulled up in the warm-up.
“It’s an amazing team, there is a great belief within the squad, to be Ireland’s first team ever in the World Cup. We want to compete, we want to get results, and to score our first goal is amazing. But then to not get the result, it doesn’t really sit well with you. We’ll learn from this experience and the team is going to grow and develop.”
While Vera Pauw’s side returned to their Brisbane base immediately, several members of the media were left stranded in Perth due to a raft of cancelled flights. We watched Nigeria’s stunning win over Australia in an Irish bar, salt added to the wounds.
While there was a mission in place for the press pack to escape Western Australia, Thursday was a recovery day and Friday a day off for the squad.
Pauw and some of her staff went to the Nigeria-Australia clash at the Suncorp Stadium, while a lot of the players watched on in the fan zone. Most of them stayed around Brisbane on their off-day, and their families all came together that evening.
On Saturday morning, Pauw and several players were up for media, while they trained at Meakin Park in the evening time. The mood was decent, all things considered.
Between almost 10,000km of travel (from Dublin to Brisbane, and round trips from Brisbane to Sydney, and Brisbane to Perth), injuries and two narrow defeats to heavyweights Australia and Canada amidst a hugely difficult group, it’s been a colourful World Cup adventure. A baptism of fire to say the very least.
“We’re not going to use any excuses,” Louise Quinn said today, having played through foot ligament damage. “Denise definitely got a knock, I’ve definitely had a knock, thankfully it’s one of those things that hasn’t been able to keep us out.
“The experience of a tournament or the crowds, I actually thought we handled it amazingly against Australia. I thought we were very cool and composed, just had the right amount of nerves and really just soaked it in.”
“We’ve got to work our ass off to get something out of it,” she added on the Nigeria game.
“We can’t get out of the group but that doesn’t mean this game is any less important for us. It’s absolutely about pride it’s about proving ourselves, it’s about bringing that kind of joy with us back and trying to make sure we do it for the people at home. And most importantly ourselves, because you can see from the games we’ve done well, we’ve competed, we’ve really held it to other teams but we’ve got to still prove it and put something on the board to show it.”
While others came and went with takeaway coffees, Niamh Fahey skipped out of the team’s Emporium Hotel with a Sherrin at one point.
Amidst all the football talk and post-mortems of Ireland’s World Cup thus far, it was a reminder of life outside the bubble.
It goes on regardless. The world will keep on turning.
That bubble will sadly burst on Monday night at the Suncorp against Nigeria, though.
It remains to be seen what will happen thereafter between Pauw’s future and potential player turnover, but Ireland will be focusing on the job at hand until then.
They’ll want to finish their first major tournament on a high, targeting a win — though stiff competition awaits in the high-flying Super Falcons.
And then it’s home time on Tuesday, the Australian adventure petering out.
But hopefully with a bounce in Brisbane.