It took a breathless second-half for Ireland women\u2019s World Cup to come alive in Wavre, but an opening 3-2 defeat to Spain now leaves them with an uphill task to make it out of the group stages.<\/p>\n
Twice Ireland came back against the Spanish thanks to penalty corner strikes by Hannah McLoughlin and Niamh Carey in an end-to-end five-minute spell in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
However, a 55th-minute penalty corner goal by captain Xantal Gine means Ireland, the lowest-ranked team in their pool, must beat New Zealand in their second match tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a battle of tactics as we know each other very well,\u201d said a dejected Katie Mullan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did well to come back twice and show a really good account of ourselves with our penalty corner attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fought hard and showed a lot of character and we would have been fighting if there was a fifth quarter as we had it in terms of our stamina.\u201d Until this summer, the last time Ireland had beaten Spain came in their 2018 World Cup semi-final clash. In June, Ireland had boosted their World Cup hopes with victory and a normal time draw in a brace of Pro League games.<\/p>\n
On the outskirts of Brussels, both sides played out a tepid first quarter littered with gifted turnover balls. Spain had the better circle penetration, with Ireland\u2019s defensive lines working well.<\/p>\n
The game came alive in the second quarter, but Spanish skill was dominating. Spain also thought they had the opening goal from a retaken penalty, however Ireland successfully referred a stick foul in the build-up.<\/p>\n
With seven minutes left of the half, a central move into the circle saw Laia Vidosa turn and place her shot perfectly past Lizzy Murphy.<\/p>\n
Less than 60 seconds later, Spain countered once more and, in a packed circle, the ball was pushed home. Again Ireland asked for a video referral and, for a second time, a dangerous swing in the lead-up saw the goal ruled out.<\/p>\n
Gareth Grundie\u2019s side came out full of running after the break. Their first real sighting on goal came in the 36th minute as Carey won a timely penalty corner.<\/p>\n
Mullan trapped at the top and McLoughlin let loose with a piercing hit which deflected off a Spanish runner.<\/p>\n
Moments later, Spain went upfield and forced a fine double from Murphy. Spanish attacks continued and Sofia Keenan pushed home from a penalty corner rebound.<\/p>\n
Ireland then responded in an absorbing quarter three minutes later as Roisin Upton\u2019s well-worked corner was deflected in by the impressive Carey.<\/p>\n
The deadlock in a tight final quarter was broken five minutes from time when Gine hit the ball into the ground first from her corner effort, but it still found a route to goal.<\/p>\n
McLoughlin said: \u201cWe know Spain very well but unfortunately I don\u2019t think we got our penalty corners quite right and conceded PCs and it was very small margins.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some incredible support here in a new stadium and we need to bring that with us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Earlier, co-hosts Belgium beat New Zealand 5-2 in the other match in Ireland\u2019s pool. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took a breathless second-half for Ireland women\u2019s World Cup to come alive in Wavre, but an opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-595399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595399","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=595399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}