For Amber Barrett, the choice is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
Her unforgettable toe poke against Scotland at Hampden Park that secured qualification to the 2023 World Cup, or her poachers finish last Friday night in the 90th minute against the Netherlands which could go a long way to securing qualification to the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you know what, it’s actually very hard to compare,\u201d admitted Barrett, knowing Ireland still have a massive job to do in France on Tuesday if they are to begin making plans for the finals next summer in Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cHampden was the final. This is kind of the semi-final tonight in a way. Having moments that have such an impact on potentially where we end up and being a part of that is extremely special.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at an incredible video today as nearly a source of motivation. We actually went back to Katie’s goal against Sweden away in 2022. We talked about how important that moment was, even though we drew the game, that result was so important for us getting to the World Cup. Maybe that was our moment tonight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m delighted, really, really delighted. I don’t really have a lot of words to describe that. It’s euphoric. It’s unbelievable. It’s just so much pride and gratitude. That was incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (Tuesday\u2019s match in France) is a cup final in the way that a win takes us to the World Cup, but also, we don’t have anything to lose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve secured our position in either second or third place in the group, depending on the next couple of results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think at the very start, everybody was trying to avoid position four because of what way you go through the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think that the fact that we got to the point where we did now, where we’re in contention to potentially win the group, it’s amazing character and resilience shown by this group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abbie Larkin thought she might have scored the winner against the Dutch when she made it 2-1, to go with her earlier assist, but nonetheless she continues to be a growing influence for the team, after arguably her best performance to date for Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I’d say I gave my all for most of the Ireland performances. But yeah, this could be one of my top one,\u201d added Larkin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as well playing my club football, playing regularly has definitely helped me. So, yeah, feeling really confident. Can’t wait for France.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Amber Barrett, the choice is extremely difficult. Her unforgettable toe poke against Scotland at Hampden Park that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,18998],"class_list":["post-488554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-wnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488554","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=488554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}