Carla Ward has said she’d welcome Ireland playing in Cork once again for the second leg of their World Cup play-offs later this year.
The Girls in Green found out they’ll face Kazakhstan over two legs in October in the play-off semi-final, before facing the winner of Belgium and Poland in the play-off final. Both offer up their own unique challenges.
Against Kazakhstan, it will be the travel, with the flight from Dublin to Astana on average taking over 12 hours. However, the Kazakhs are 100th ranked in the World and the lowest-ranked side Ireland could’ve gotten, so they should have enough to see them off.
Abbie Larkin of Republic of Ireland celebrates. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
And while they’ve beaten both Belgium and Poland in the last 7 months, they know what to expect from Ireland as much as Ireland knows what to expect from them. With a further 5 months until that potential tie to scout, that could be a very tricky tie.
That’ll make the second leg even more important, and as a seeded team, Ireland has home advantage, with the question now being, do Ireland play that important game in Cork or Dublin? The crowd in the Rebel County was raucous for the Girls in Green’s win over the Netherlands, but the Aviva Stadium is the home of football in this country.
‘You don’t have to ask me twice about Cork,’ Ireland manager Carla Ward said about the dilemma. ‘I absolutely love it down there, and I think the players do too. It’s not been confirmed where we’ll play.
Republic of Ireland head coach Carla Ward. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
‘Of course, we would love to have one in Dublin and one in Cork. I think that would be the ultimate dream, but we’ll have to wait and see and let the powers that be look after that side of it.”
‘The beauty of it is, I think form will probably go out the window, previous games will go out the window. I think that’ll be a one-off, big play-off final. I think it’ll be a very different game, to maybe what we witnessed in both games at the Aviva. You know me, I’ll always try and get the one-percenters. We’ll certainly use some of that. But yeah, it will be a tough fit, a tough ask, no matter where we play.’
As it stands, it appears the Kazakhstan fixtures will take place firstly on October 7 away, before the home leg on October 13. If they are successful, Ireland will face either Belgium or Poland in November/December.