Republic of Ireland midfielder Megan Connolly has returned to the Republic of Ireland squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifiers against France and the Netherlands in March.<\/p>\n
Connolly missed the November friendly against Hungary in November due to injury and is back in Carla Ward’s squad for the upcoming games.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Courtney Brosnan also returns from injury, but Heather Payne misses out despite her return from injury.<\/p>\n
Ireland will face France at Tallaght Stadium on March 3rd, before travelling to the Netherlands four days later.<\/p>\n
The other team in the group is Poland, whom they will face in a double-header in April.<\/p>\n
The winners of the group qualify directly for the 2027 tournament in Brazil, with the rest guaranteed a place in the play-offs.<\/p>\n
A third-place finish would mean Ireland potentially gets a kinder draw in the play-offs, while also ensuring they stay in League A for the next Nations League.<\/p>\n
Goalkeepers: Courtney Brosnan (Everton FC), Sophie Whitehouse (Charlton Athletic), Grace Moloney (Sunderland).<\/p>\n
Defenders: Katie McCabe (Arsenal FC), Anna Patten (Aston Villa FC), Caitlin Hayes (Brighton & Hove Albion), Hayley Nolan (Crystal Palace), Aoife Mannion (Newcastle United), Jessie Stapleton (Nottingham Forest – loan), Chloe Mustaki (Nottingham Forest).<\/p>\n
Midfielders: Denise O’Sullivan (Liverpool), Tyler Toland (Durham), Megan Connolly (Lazio), Marissa Sheva (Sunderland), Lucy Quinn (Birmingham City), Ruesha Littlejohn (Crystal Palace), Jamie Finn (Sunderland).<\/p>\n
Attackers: Saoirse Noonan (Celtic FC), Abbie Larkin (Crystal Palace), Leanne Kiernan (Nottingham Forest – loan), Emily Murphy (Newcastle United), Kyra Carusa (Kansas City Current – loan), Amber Barrett (Strasbourg).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland midfielder Megan Connolly has returned to the Republic of Ireland squad for their upcoming World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-302775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302775","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=302775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}