If bonus points were on offer for the lustiness with which teams belt out anthems, Ireland would have had one in the bag before they even kicked off against Sweden at the Aviva Stadium on Friday evening. Alas, you have to earn points on the actual pitch, and against the sixth ranked nation on the planet, that was unlikely to be a breeze.
That this was to be the game where Ireland might steal a point or three says something of the level they’re now trying to compete at. France (ranked three in the world) and England (ranked two) proved a bridge too far in the opening window of the qualifying campaign, so in comparison, the Swedes, semi-finalists in the World Cup last summer, were mere minnows.
But a crowd of 22,000, in or around 8,000 less than was forecast by the FAI (what’s that all about?), turned up in the hope of seeing this Irish team bloody the nose of one of the game’s powerhouses, and cripes, they came close enough to doing so in the opening stages.
When the team news came in, all you could do was doff your cap to the courage of those folk who attempt to predict Eileen Gleeson selections, when they’re oft predictable as the weather.
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Denise O’Sullivan’s banjaxed knee ruled her out, and the mighty Ruesha Littlejohn was sidelined too, but those who claimed they knew Amber Barrett and Lily Agg would start have noses the length of Pinocchio’s.
Katie McCabe had caught up with her sleep, having played an entire 90 minutes for Arsenal in Melbourne - Melbourne! - just the week before, another indication of how the sport takes great care of its players, not least at a time when there’s an ACL epidemic. Ah, here.
Marie Crowe was our host on the Aviva sidelines, Lisa Fallon and Stephanie Roche joining her, all three hopeful-ish of a performance akin to the one in Gothenburg not many moons ago when Ireland held the Swedes to a draw.
Game time. We’d hardly started when George Hamilton was left reminiscing about Roy Keane’s reducer on Marc Overmars 23 years ago when Agg came close enough to sending Fridolina Rolfö and her two Champions League titles in to the middle of next week with an early - how do we describe it? - challenge. George suspected Aine O’Gorman was too young to remember Roy’s - how do we describe it? - challenge on Overmars, and he wasn’t too far off, her being just 14 at the time.
To O’Gorman’s distinct pleasure, Ireland started by showing feck all respect for their illustrious opponents. And they should have led. How Agg didn’t convert Barrett’s cross we will never know. And how Barrett didn’t head home Jess Ziu’s highly delicious cross was difficult to comprehend too. She’s been banging them in for Standard Liege, 19 in all, you’d half guess she’d have swapped all 19 of them for that header nestling in the net.
But then Sweden did Sweden things. They scored. In between being sprayed by the Aviva sprinklers at half-time, the panel mourned the missed opportunities to have made that first half a whole different story. But the story remained the same in the second half. Sweden, goal. Sweden, goal. 3-0 up and cruising.
Ireland cruised through their Nations League campaign last year, flooring Albania, Hungary and Northern Ireland, but oh my, this step up is a whopper. They’re competing, but they’re nowhere close thus far to pointing.
[ Goals prove elusive for Ireland in deflating Sweden defeatOpens in new window ]
That’s five games on the trot now that they’ve failed to score, Caitlin Hayes’ 86th minute goal against Northern Ireland last December the last time they had anything to celebrate. It’s the rudest of awakenings for a team brimming with ambition after the achievements of the last couple of years.
But they’re still light years behind England, France and Sweden, and there’s no shame in that, they’re all on an entirely different level with an unending pool of talent to draw from. And structures that keep on pumping new talent in to the system. Ireland can only watch and purr.
“We’re frustrated, we thought we could have been two goals up in the first half,” said Gleeson after. “We need to be more clinical. But these are top teams we’re playing against. We have to get better. We go again on Tuesday.”
Still, a 3-0 defeat at home …. not good. Report card: must do better. Despite the quality of that opposition.
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