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Mary Hannigan: Awkward homecoming on the cards when Ireland return from Women’s World Cup

No word yet on Vera Pauw’s future, as Darragh Ó Sé picks his team of the year

Karen Duggan suspects that if the FAI had wanted to give Vera Pauw a new contract, they’d have done it by now. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

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Mary Hannigan
Wed Aug 2 2023 - 09:33

The Republic of Ireland’s World Cup squad will gather in Dublin tomorrow for their official homecoming on O’Connell Street. The occasion has the potential to be decidedly awkward given the “simmering tensions within the squad” which, writes Gavin Cummiskey, “finally surfaced in the open disagreement between captain Katie McCabe and manager Vera Pauw”.

While there’s no word yet from the FAI on Pauw’s future, Gavin’s sense is that they are “set to freshen up the management team” ahead of Northern Ireland’s visit in September, Karen Duggan sharing that feeling.

“If I was Vera, I’d probably just say ‘thanks for everything’ and slip away quietly,” she writes, suspecting that if the FAI had wanted to give her a new contract, they’d have done it by now. She’s tired of the sideshows, though, and just wants the saga to end, one way or another.

In Gaelic games, Darragh Ó Sé reflects on the All Ireland final, one he believes Kerry will feel they “left behind”, but one Dublin captured “on merit”. “The old band can still rattle out a good tune,” he says, saluting the contributions of the likes of Stephen Cluxton, James McCarthy and Brian Fenton.

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All three make Darragh’s team of the year, Paul Mannion missing out – although having just won his seventh All Ireland medal, that’s unlikely to dampen his mood. Paul Keane spoke to Sunday’s man of the match who made the decision to return to inter-county football after watching Dublin lose last year’s semi-final to Kerry. “It was very much, ‘I owe it to these lads’,” he says.

Seán Moran, meanwhile, looks back at a “troubled” championship season, one that was, he says, “too rushed” and too “densely packed”. The lack of jeopardy in so many of the group games was another issue, as was the status of the provincial championships. “They’ve have had their day in the sense that they are no longer necessary for the pursuit of the All-Ireland,” he writes.

In rugby, Gerry Thornley hears from Paul O’Connell ahead of Ireland’s meeting with Italy at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, a game that marks the start of their build-up to the World Cup.

And out west, Brian O’Connor reports on a memorable Tuesday evening for Dermot Weld at the Galway Races where it was like old times for “the perennial King of Ballybrit” when he landed the day two festival feature with Coeur D’or.

Telly watch: Group F will be decided at the World Cup this morning, Jamaica v Brazil (RTÉ2) and Panama v France (ITV4) kicking off at 11.0. Only Panama have no chance of progressing, France are currently a point clear of Jamaica and Brazil. And at 5.0, RTÉ2 has coverage of day three at the Galway Races.