The Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team are now just 180 minutes away from reaching their second World Cup final tournament. After beating Kazakhstan 12-0 on aggregate in their play-off semi-final, the Girls in Green will play Poland in the play-off final over two legs to try and make it to Brazil for next year’s World Cup finals. The first leg of the play-off final be will be played in Poland, probably in Gdansk, on Dec.1, with the second leg at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Dec. 5.
After cruising to an 8-0 win over Kazakhstan in the first leg in Astana on Oct. 9 the visitors put up a much better performance in the second leg in Cork last week, keeping the score down to 1-0 at half-time, the goal coming from a header by Jessie Stapleton. Irish manager Carla Ward emptied her bench in the second half and Katie McCabe got her 35th international goal with further goals from Lucy Quinn and Cork’s own Denise O’Sullivan saw a 4-0 home win.
Meanwhile Poland and Belgium ended their semi-final play-off with a 3-3 on aggregate score and the Poles winning the penalty shoot-out. Poland, who sit seven places behind Ireland in the Fifa’s rankings at 29, have never qualified for the World Cup, but did reach the Euros finals in Switzerland last year. They were in our World Cup group and we won the first leg 3-2 in Gdansk and a Marissa Shiva goal gave us all 3 points in the second leg at the Aviva. The attendance in Pairc Ui Chaoimh last week was 10,000, not bad for a dead rubber on a Tuesday night, but the FAI are expecting close to a full house of 51,000 for the second leg of the play-off final against Poland on Dec.5. Meanwhile Northern Ireland’s World Cup hopes are over; they were beaten 7-1 on aggregate by Portugal in their semi-final play-off last week.
