Ireland will take on Poland on Saturday, for the second time in four days, this time at the Aviva Stadium.
Ireland’s Megan Connolly in action with Poland’s Ewelina Kamczyk(Image: INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
Irish hopes of back-to-back wins against Poland are high after Tuesday night’s 3-2 victory in Gdansk.
But ahead of Saturday’s return game at the Aviva Stadium, midfielder Megan Connolly has warned that they cannot take another three-point haul for granted.
A win would all but secure at least a third placed finish – and a significantly smoother play-off path to next year’s World Cup in Brazil.
However, Lazio star Connolly warned that Carla Ward’s side should expect a more aggressive Polish performance in Dublin.
“I think they would look to push a lot more against us,” she said, reflecting on Ireland’s strong and positive start to Tuesday’s game.
“We can’t be complacent and think that the same things are going to happen that did the other night. I do think they’ll be a lot more front footed and a lot more aggressive.
“We have to just be ready from the start. I think the spaces that showed up the other night might not show up again.
“We’ll have to find different ways to try to break them down and just be ready for them to be full guns blazing.”
One thing that Connolly and her teammates hope to avoid this time around is gifting the Poles a way back into the game, just as they did in Gdansk.
Twice in the away game Ward’s side opened up a two-goal lead, only to see it halved, and that led to a nervy finale.
That, according to Connolly, comes down to “game management” and “making sure that we can either keep the lead or that we’re not struggling late on in the game.”
She added: “I think we’ve done quite well against Poland in the end, trying to manage when it was 3-2 and trying to manage the game out.
“But, yeah, that’s definitely something that we’re aware of. When you’re playing in League A, it’s the small details that are the difference between seeing out a win or conceding, getting a draw or losing like we did in the previous two games [against France and the Netherlands].
“So we’re still trying to improve on that and I think we’ve done well the other night.
“We’ve set a good standard, we’ve set a good base level, but there’s a lot of things that we can still improve on.”
Connolly reckons we are seeing the fruits of the work done by Carla Ward since her arrival just over a year ago.
“Since Carla’s come in we’ve done our formation, we’re trying to build, and we’re trying to get that style of play,” she said.
“I think the more we’ve gone into different camps, the more we get more comfortable with each other. We’re just comfortable moving the ball and playing.”