'It discredits the team to say that... You have to play the teams that are in front of you'

13 Oct 2026, 05:15 by Sinead Farrell · The42

THE QUALITY OF opposition facing Ireland on the World Cup play-off route doesn’t concern Denise O’Sullivan or manager Carla Ward.

If anything, they feel that playing against a nation that has an inferior ranking makes the challenge all the more difficult. Managing expectations is one of many burdens to carry. The public is anticipating a comfortable victory against a team like Kazakhstan, who sit 78 places beneath Ireland on the rankings. Winning the first leg of their World Cup play-off semi-final 8-0 puts Ireland in a commanding position to complete the mission at Páirc Uí Chaoimh tonight.

But there are concerns about how such ties could leave Ireland a bit undercooked for the bigger tests that await in their World Cup qualification campaign. Belgium or Poland await in the final, two teams who qualified for the Euros last year while Ireland missed out.

In the wake of that big win last Friday, the RTÉ panel referred back to that disappointing campaign for Ireland. A 9-0 aggregate win over Georgia was followed by the despair of losing a two-legged play-off final against Wales which ended their hopes of reaching the tournament.

O’Sullivan, however, doesn’t feel it’s a relevant comparison.

“I don’t really agree with that,” she said at the media briefing before the second leg in Cork. “You have to face the teams that are in front of you, that’s all we can do as a team. I think it discredits the team to say that because I thought they were excellent the other night. I agree with Carla, it’s tough to play those teams that sit in a low block and I think many years ago we struggled with that as well.

“I think we’ve got to play with what’s in front of us and the girls were excellent. To score eight goals [in the first leg] is amazing, and we’ll be looking to even better than that.”

Ward expands on that by outlining the tactical quandary that Kazakhstan presented at Astana Arena last week.

“It’s tricky to play the likes of Kazakhstan. They sit in, it’s difficult, they take away any space, they bank up. It was a different type of challenge, it was a really good challenge for them to face that kind of opponent.

“You’ve seen in all the other Nations League games, some big nations struggled to get past the lower nations. What this group did is put on a performance where they were ruthless, and it doesn’t matter who they face, we have a job to do.”