{"id":244898,"date":"2026-01-14T21:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244898\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:27:09","slug":"sean-oconnor-a-year-on-from-carla-wards-arrival-her-reign-will-be-defined-by-whether-or-not-she-can-get-ireland-to-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/244898\/","title":{"rendered":"Se\u00e1n O\u2019Connor: A year on from Carla Ward\u2019s arrival, her reign will be defined by whether or not she can get Ireland to the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Carla Ward is a year in her job as Ireland WNT manager. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/27a131cb-fa2f-4a69-ae54-5416ab2620cb.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Carla Ward is a year in her job as Ireland WNT manager. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">One year down, a huge one looming. Almost twelve months to the day since being appointed Ireland women\u2019s boss, Carla Ward will hope that 2026 ends with a place at the 2027 World Cup safely secured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">After the pain of Ireland\u2019s Euro 2025 play-off defeat to Wales a little over a year ago, the 42-year-old succeeded Eileen Gleeson after the FAI decided not to renew her contract, as former Aston Villa and Sheffield United boss Ward earned her first top job in international football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carla Ward is a year in her job as Ireland WNT manager. Photo: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile One year down,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1113,61,60,43,4876],"class_list":["post-244898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sean-oconnor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}