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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Irish Football on Off The Ball. Brought to you by Cadbury. A proud sponsor of the Republic of Ireland football teams. This is Newstalk. Welcome back to Off the Ball Sunday here on Newstalk. John Duggan with you through to seven. So Dyson Maida had the ball in the Rangers net but ruled out for offside. So still goalers between Rangers and Celtic in the Scottish Cup at Ibrox.
In the FA Cup at the moment, Fulham 0, Southampton 0 and Port Vale 0, Sunderland 0. So the Republic of Ireland lost 2-1 to the Netherlands in their World Cup qualifier last night. The Women's World Cup qualifiers for Brazil in 2027. Let's check in with our reporter in Utrecht, Kathleen McNamee. Afternoon, Kathleen. Afternoon, John. This has been a really unfortunate week in ways.
I mean, we've come up empty-handed after two 2-1 defeats against top sides. The players and the management, they must be just gutted. Yeah, the devastation that there was around the place last night was definitely very different to anything that I've seen in a long time, to be honest, from that team. You know, we talked to a couple of players. We talked to Carla Ward afterwards.
You could even see the body language on the pitch whenever the game finished that they were really upset. And I think the thing is that we've seen probably two of the best performances that this team has ever put in. And yet we've still come up short and been undone by... like really, really good opposition.
I think there's a lot of times when we look back, you know, you think of the Ukraine games when we were trying to qualify for the Euros or the Welsh games again, where we were coming up against opposition that we knew we should have beaten. We knew we should have...
gone further but we just didn't play to our skill whereas this time we've come up against two world-class teams we've put in a serious shift it's looked like I mean last night it was the 82nd minute before the Dutch actually managed to get through us and properly win out the game and then they spent the last 10 or so minutes with added time time wasting and just trying to keep the ball out of play and you know I think that was something that everyone really reflected on last night was that
we are actually being properly respected by these top tier teams. And that's something that has just come from years of development and hopefully is something that we can bring into the polling game in a month or so's time. You wonder what would have happened as well if we'd had Denise Sullivan last night. Yeah, I think it would have made a massive difference, to be perfectly honest.
I think in the first half, we really, really saw her absence. It was interesting, you know, Lucy Quinn was the player that was decided to come in in the first half to kind of replace Denise. And whenever the team sheets were handed out in the media room in Utrecht, it was probably the one name that basically every single journalist didn't expect to see.
And I think she had an essentially impossible role in trying to come in there and replace Denise. But I think what I really noticed, and even some of the players said it afterwards, was that it was almost, I think it was in their heads that they didn't have Denise there. And there was passes going astray. There was, you know, different breaking balls that were happening.
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Chapter 2: What were the key moments in the Netherlands vs. Ireland match?
There was an obvious difference in the way the team came out in the second half in terms of being a bit more confident on the ball, going for things a little bit more. What was the advice from Carla and the team at halftime? Yeah, I think, to be honest, a massive part of that was Katie.
She got us all round and said that it needed to be better and we needed to back ourselves more and realise that we have more time on the ball. I think that's what... meant that we all came out with a bit more fight. And yeah, you could see that with the first part of that second half, obviously scoring the goal.
You're obviously on the receiving end, as you mentioned there, of a bit of a knock or two. But the same thing, like the France game as well, they're both two really physical games.
Do you think that that shows that people are starting to appreciate our football as something different to maybe that they have in the past, that they need to get on top of us, they need to annoy us, they need to try and pull something out of us because we're actually technically really gifted? Yeah, I think so.
I think our forwards have been incredible in both these games, being able to hold the ball up, keep on running and link play. And I think teams probably have left a bit too open for the quality that we have up there, definitely.
I think the fact that the Netherlands were time-wasting at the end of the game shows how far we've come as well, because I don't think they would have done that previously. And do you think that there's...
This team is now really cementing a bit more of an identity under Carla in terms of knowing how we want to play, the level that we're able to play at, because we've seen, while the results weren't exactly what we wanted the last two days, two really, really competitive performances. Yeah, and I think that's what we've got to take.
It has been really competitive, it's been really positive at points, and I think that's what we need to take into our final two games. That was Anna Patton. We're reflecting on the Republic of Ireland's 2-1 defeat to the Netherlands in the Women's World Cup qualifier with Kathleen McNamee, a new trek to Irish football and off the ball.
Brought to you by Cadbury, a proud sponsor of the Republic of Ireland football team. So they got a really good goal to go ahead, but then we equalised the penalty early in the second half, Kathleen. Yeah, and I think that penalty definitely gave us the lift that we needed in that we had started really well. Now, within the stadium, I didn't think it was a penalty.
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Chapter 3: How did Kathleen McNamee describe the team's emotional state after the defeat?
most of the time that goes in favour of the keeper chatting to Anna after the game she said she definitely got a whack and wasn't best impressed with the Dutch players some of them who she plays with in the WSL trying to say that she didn't get a hit in the box but I have to say, we've seen... There's been times where McCabe has struggled to convert penalties in an Irish jersey.
And yesterday, the atmosphere was absolutely mad. The booing from the Dutch fans. They had little lights behind the goal as well. People were trying to put her off. And she very calmly stood up and took the goal. And I think that really was the... the impetus that the team needed to keep pushing on for the rest of the game. And you saw there was a difference in the way that they played.
But at the end of the day, we just gave the Dutch far too much space in the box when it came to crosses and corners and to be outdone by a set piece again, which is something that we're generally quite good at defending in the terms of this week, is disappointing because...
A lot, like our defence really did put their bodies on the line at a couple of times where I thought that the Dutch could have easily got one or two more and they managed to hold it back. So, yeah, it was great to get a goal.
It would have been nice to get one from play because I know as an Irish side, whether it's the men's team or the women's team, sometimes that is the way that we struggle the most to score goals and we have a heavy reliance on set-pieces. Yeah, shades of him, Kieft in 1988 with the Dutch scoring the last 10 minutes to beat the Republic of Ireland, Lynette Berenstain with the goal.
Look, I say it was, was it then, did we look like equalising from there or was it just a sucker punch, it was a knockout blow? It was a sucker punch.
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Chapter 4: What were the standout performances from the Ireland team?
We definitely had our chances. I would have said that we probably had better chances in Tala whenever the French went ahead. I think we really, really put it to the French in terms of throwing balls in. It was one thing that Amber Barrett actually said, interestingly, because I asked her how she felt playing in a team that was...
more attacking than we've probably seen this Irish team in a long time. And she spoke about her frustrations at the end of the game that we weren't just putting more balls into the box or putting it, as she said, as close to goal as possible and hoping that someone was on the end of it. But I think The Dutch were smart yesterday in that they knew how to frustrate us.
There was a lot of time wasting going on. There was a lot of niggly challenges, particularly on McCabe, because obviously we knew she went into that game on a yellow. It was clear that they were trying to get in Irish heads. And we didn't let them, but we also didn't really get the opportunities in those last eight minutes that we had in comparison.
to the to the French game and she also had that very bizarre moment when Courtney Brosnan came halfway up the pitch thought she was going to do a solo run all the way to the goal but was dispossessed and one of the Dutch players tried to lob it in from the halfway line and somehow it hit off the head of her defender who was the only person in that half at the time so there definitely could have been a few more goals on the Dutch side but as you said earlier like the
That team, they were just devastated after the game last night. And I think a culmination of the week, Caitlin Hayes in particular, who I mentioned at the start, had two good chances at the start of the match. She put in such a Trojan effort. Her head was used for everything to keep the Irish team still in the match.
And whenever she came to speak to us after the game, you could see she was visibly upset. You know, she... talking to her at any moment it looked like she was going to get quite upset but she was actually she was very reflective on it and we can hear a clip from her now about how the experience was Caitlin obviously a really disappointing night how are you feeling?
Yeah, probably a bit like yourselves, just gutted, but trying to remember and remind myself of the positives of standing toe-to-toe with another giant of women's football, which is no mean feat. So yeah, but gutted, overwhelmingly. I can imagine. You had an incredible game. I mean, I think your head was the reason why we stayed in it for so long. You took a few knocks yourself.
Are you feeling okay afterwards? I'm all right. It's fine. It's numb by now. Talk to us what it was like out there, because the atmosphere and the build-up was incredible. I think there was a lot of positives that everyone took going into today in terms of how the team had played. And for the majority of the game, again, we were in it. Yeah, of course.
I think it's always great to come to a country like Netherlands that you can really see the how much it means to the country. I still think it was louder in Tallaght the other night and I would take anybody on that defied that or disagreed but it's always great, like I said, to go toe-to-toe with a giant of women's football.
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