A DEFENSIVE OUTFIT scoring with less than five minutes on the board is as rare and unusual as an Olympico (a goal scored directly from a corner).
It was a situation that Ireland had to manage against Canada tonight, given it wasn’t a position they often find themselves in.
The best way of ensuring the goal didn’t come too early in the World Cup Group B game was to go and get a second. And with Canada completely rattled by Ireland’s bright start, there were chances to do so.
A failure to find the back of the net again is something that captain Katie McCabe and coach Vera Pauw regretted immediately after the final whistle.
“We were on the front foot, we put them under pressure, made sure they didn’t have time and space on the ball,” McCabe told reporters at a press conference.
“We had them at times, but when we are getting into those final-third moments, we need to capitalise on it. At this level we need to get that second goal to maybe take the pressure off ourselves.”
Pauw agreed, putting the gap in the final scoreline down to experience.
“It is what I said in the pre-match press conference already, that experience is what we lack,” she explained.
“This is our first tournament, our first World Cup. You can see they (Canada) have many behind them, in their pockets. The experience shows in that they just wait for those few moments and they know how to react in those situations.
“The thing is, if we would have been able to capitalise with one more goal, it would have been a different story of course.”
An emotional and heartbroken McCabe touched on the same problem when speaking with sports writers – who praised the team’s continued press after the early break – in the stadium post-game.
“Definitely, yeah, they’re the moments when you do want to go another one up, when you have them rattled and you have momentum in the game. The fans are behind you. You’re on the front foot. At this level, it’s about capitalising on it. And making sure we’re finishing any sort of chances we have.”
She believes there was “nothing more we could do other than score”.
In her post-match analysis, she detailed how “the sucker punch just before we went in at half-time… didn’t knock us because we felt like we had momentum in the game”.
“We’d spoken at half time to keep the energy because we felt we had them rattled at times, and put them under pressure.
“And it was something we learned from the Australia match, not giving them too much time on the ball, actually getting in their face more. I thought we did that. We changed formation towards the end of the game, we pushed players higher on, made changes.”
Pauw also told the press conference that Ireland ‘tried everything’ to change the game.
“We played 15 minutes with 4-2-4 and that was tremendous,” she said, referring to a change to how she is usually wedded to a five at the back.
I am so incredibly proud of where we are. The journey started four years ago.
“There was a lot done before that, where previous coaches did tremendous work. But I can only speak of the journey where I have been involved.”
She asked people to compare today’s performance to one against Greece away in November 2019 – her second game in charge and a one all draw with an injury-time equaliser being coughed up.
“If you can compare it to the start, remember Greece away, compare that to this team, it’s as if you see a completely different team, a different attitude and knowledge and approach to the game, different teamwork and skill…
“Everyone was thinking it was so nice for Ireland to be here, let’s see if they can cope.
“We showed that and the fact that we were so disappointed, after such a narrow loss by a penalty kick (against Australia), which was very unfortunate, and now with an own goal, losing to the Olympic champions; who thought that?
“But we are sports people, we hate losing. At this moment it just hurts, but during the game I said to Tom (Elmes), we are equal, if not better. That was just tremendous.”
Sinéad O’Carroll and Emma Duffy are in Australia reporting for The Journal and The 42. Subscribe to The 42 here.
