{"id":333402,"date":"2026-03-07T07:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333402\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T07:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T07:17:07","slug":"no-denise-osullivan-but-ireland-can-profit-from-dutch-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/333402\/","title":{"rendered":"No Denise O’Sullivan but Ireland can profit from Dutch doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"

The slogan of \u201cNo guts, no glory\u201d that greets Ireland’s players on the way into the Stadion Galgenwaard will resonate.<\/p>\n

The quote by Utrecht\u2019s businessman owner Frans van Seumeren will remind Ireland of the traits exhibited on the last occasion they contested a competitive fixture in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n

That 2017 stalemate subdued the celebratory mood around the home team newly garlanded as European champions. It was achieved by a dollop of perseverance and that essential commodity of luck.<\/p>\n

This Dutch side Ireland visit carries a different motivation to appease the 15,000 anticipated turnout.<\/p>\n

Arjan Veurink\u2019s return to his homeland last April \u2013 having assisted Sarina Wiegman to back-to-back Euro titles \u2013 was designed to rekindle the glory days.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s still working with a sprinkling of players from that glory era he was initially part of with Wiegman but the first competitive outing on Tuesday was something of a disaster.<\/p>\n

Being held to a 2-2 draw away to Poland was inauspicious in itself but the fact they ceded 19 attempts on goal, the most for a decade, has bred worry into the locals.<\/p>\n

What confronts Carla Ward and her Ireland team is the challenge of exposing those frailties.<\/p>\n

They did so for an hour on Tuesday, against a notionally better French team, by pressuring them into hasty and wayward distribution. If Ireland can also frustrate the Oranjeleeuwinnen, they\u2019ve a chance of upsetting the team ranked 11 in Fifa\u2019s standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in League A for a reason,\u201d affirmed Ward, noting how they gained promotion for these World Cup qualifiers by beating Belgium over two legs last October.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re coming up against the best teams in the world but we\u2019ll embrace that because let\u2019s be really honest \u2013 who gives us a chance outside of our own camp?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SHOOTINGSHOOTING STAR: Kyra Carusa during a Republic of Ireland women’s training session at Stadion Galgenwaard in Utrecht. Photo by Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Convoluted playoffs later in the year render these six group games secondary to Ireland\u2019s quest of qualifying for a second World Cup on the spin, having reached Australia in 2023.<\/p>\n

Any morsel of positivity Ireland accrue along the way is crucial to their wellbeing for the playoffs because they\u2019re unlikely to face a team at the level of France or Netherlands in the playoff decider.<\/p>\n

Veurink cited Ireland\u2019s low block as the barrier France struggled to perforate on the opening night. A similar rearguard action is primed to neuter the Dutch dynamos, necessitating patience from their players and, importantly, fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do remember some tough games against Ireland but there’s many ways to approach the game,\u201d he said about their gameplan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll try to play with a high ball tempo; let’s say, switch the play quite a lot, from which spaces will hopefully open up for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of creative players in our team and I definitely have confidence that if we are able to do that we’ll generate some good chances to score.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivianne Miedema is their standout threat. She\u2019s a rare double centurion \u2013 holding the record of 104 goals in 131 caps.<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s still only 29. It\u2019s 12 years since her hat-trick knocked Ireland out of the Euro U19 finals at the semi-final stage and she\u2019s still prolific for her country and WSL leaders Manchester City.<\/p>\n

Only for an ACL injury that wedged a 22-month gap between goals 95 and 96, she\u2019d be closer to breaking the world record of 128 all-time goals held by German legend Birgit Prinz. She\u2019ll be around for several more years and has Ireland to tick off as a nation to score against.<\/p>\n

Star quality is in abundance across the Dutch team, Chelsea represented, as they were, in the French side. As ever with the Dutch, fusing the components into a unified force constitutes the elusive task.<\/p>\n

Ireland will be missing one of their two world-class operators. Denise O\u2019Sullivan looked a doubt when hobbling off the pitch on Tuesday but Ward is adamant she\u2019ll be back for the double-header against Poland on April 14 and 18.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it is – there\u2019s a problem with her MCL,\u201d confessed Ward about the Corkwoman\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s all I\u2019ll say for now. She\u2019s seeing a consultant in Liverpool at the moment and we\u2019ll know more then. I don\u2019t think (she\u2019ll need surgery) and I\u2019ve been told she\u2019ll be back for Poland.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A reshuffle is certain, with Jessie Stapleton the probable beneficiary.<\/p>\n

Whatever team and tactics Ward opts for, her crew cannot be crushed from lacking the non-negotiable guts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The slogan of \u201cNo guts, no glory\u201d that greets Ireland’s players on the way into the Stadion Galgenwaard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1113,61,60,2539,5782,43,5783],"class_list":["post-333402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fai","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-league-of-ireland","tag-local-soccer","tag-news","tag-premiership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333402","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=333402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}