Katie McCabe and Denise O\u2019Sullivan will be unleashed at Pairc U\u00ed Chaoimh on Tuesday as Ireland intend showing no mercy to Kazakhstan in the women\u2019s World Cup playoff semi-final.<\/p>\n
That arduous eleven-hour trip Ireland endured to Astana for Friday\u2019s first leg will feel a lot harder for the visitors bruised by an 8-0 pasting.<\/p>\n
Ireland are already thinking of next month\u2019s showdown against either Poland or Belgium for a place at the 2027 showpiece.<\/p>\n
They have beaten both potential finalists over the past year and it is the Belgians in control of reaching that finale by leading 1-0 from the first leg in Leuven.<\/p>\n
Yet Poland missed a penalty by their Barcelona star Ewa Pajor.<\/p>\n
Ireland manager Carla Ward has spoken of the four-step journey to Rio de Janeiro in June of next year and part two of that sequence will be devoid of stress due to the mismatch they confronted against a nation ranked 77 places behind them.<\/p>\n
Chelsea star McCabe accompanied her team across Europe for that formality.<\/p>\n
She sat in the Astana Arena offering encouragement but having served her one-match ban will be back leading the team in Cork. Her 108th cap will be an occasion to swell her goal haul of 31.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan will address the media on Monday, fresh from being rested for the pedestrian opening half of this exercise.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s back on home soil, in fine fettle following her move to New York giants Gotham, and also be eager for goals on her 133rd appearance.<\/p>\n
Munster\u2019s GAA headquarters has been a happy hunting ground for Ireland, with their two best results for years, against superpowers France and Netherlands, sandwiched in between by a win over Slovenia clinched by local Saoirse Noonan, accounting for their three Leeside visits. There\u2019s no danger of the fourth, kicking off at 7.30pm. arresting that trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie McCabe and Denise O\u2019Sullivan will be unleashed at Pairc U\u00ed Chaoimh on Tuesday as Ireland intend showing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1113,61,60,2539,5782,43,5783],"class_list":["post-651991","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\/651991","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=651991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}