It might not be mathematical yet, but the Republic of Ireland’s back-to-back wins over Poland last week have almost certainly sealed third place in their World Cup qualifying group.
And that will make a “huge difference” to the Girls in Green’s hopes of reaching next summer’s showpiece in Brazil, according to former international Rachel Graham.
Last Tuesday’s 3-2 win in Gdansk coupled with the 1-0 victory at Aviva Stadium on Saturday means Ireland have six points from their first quartet of games, a full five clear of the Polish with two qualifiers remaining, and in the slipstream of favourites France and the Netherlands.
While finishing fourth would still offer a play-off place, that route would have seen Carla Ward’s side facing more difficult opponents in the opening round tie this October.
But as things stand with third virtually in the bag, the path through a play-off would see Ireland take on one of Lithuania, Kosovo, Hungary or Greece in a first round tie.
Come through that and Serbia, Ukraine, Austria or Poland would be lying in wait in the second and final round.
The latter does provide opposition of a similar level in a two-legged scenario but none that Ward’s side should fear, meaning it would leave the squad with a sense that a summer in Brazil next year is a real possibility if they can maintain current performance levels.
“Finishing third, it makes a huge difference,” Shelbourne midfielder Graham told this week’s RTÉ Soccer Podcast.
Listen to the RTÉ Soccer podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
“You’d imagine the first (round) we should be able to come through them comfortably enough and then the second round, they would be tougher games.
“Austria, Poland – obviously we’ve beaten them twice – but again it’s only one goal in a game. So you have the beating of them, you know that but it doesn’t mean it’s going to be necessarily that easy.
“It’s a huge difference finishing third. I’d fully back them. You’d have the confidence going in if we do play well, if we do show up, we can beat them teams and no better place to go than Brazil for a World Cup.
“It’s hard not to get excited but we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.”
Marissa Sheva got goals in Gdansk and Dublin last week
One area of growth for Ireland since Ward became manager has been on the goalscoring front.
In her 12 competitive games in charge, only once – the chastening 4-0 defeat in Slovenia last year towards the start of her reign – has her side been held scoreless.
That was evident across both games against the Poles with Ireland coming mightily close to adding to their 1-0 win on Saturday but for the intervention of the woodwork.
“It’s huge and probably goes to show how far we’ve come as a team,” Graham said.
“To see the goals that we are scoring, the attacking football that we are playing, we’ve probably been lacking in the past (in that area).
“We were always hard to beat, we could always defend and put it up to top nations but never really looked like we were going to score against them.
“But I just think in this League A we’ve shown a different side to ourselves against the likes of a Poland where we can defend well but when we are playing attacking football, we’re not just trying to catch teams out on a break or just trying to score off set pieces.
“We’re playing lovely football, nice attacking football and that is credit to Carla Ward. She has said that from the start that that’s the way she wants to be and we’re probably only seeing it now.”
Watch Arsenal v Lyon in the UEFA Women’s Champions League on Sunday from 3pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences