Three wins and three defeats to complete third of their World Cup qualifying group might not appear to be a lot, however there’s lots for the Republic of Eire to be happy with in how they navigated what many thought of the hardest group in League A.
The underside seeds, who had solely received promotion to League A with a last-gasp aim in opposition to Belgium in a promotion/relegation play-off final yr, had been tipped to go straight again right down to League B after they had been drawn in opposition to France, Netherlands and Poland.
Supervisor Carla Ward all the time mentioned they needed to intention as excessive as potential, and whereas they fell in need of scaling their Everest by narrowly shedding to France of their ultimate qualifier to overlook out on computerized World Cup qualification, they nonetheless have an opportunity to succeed in subsequent yr’s event in Brazil.
They grew to become the primary aspect promoted to League A to not be relegated straight again down and the primary to select up not simply two however three wins within the high tier, together with that sensational win over the Netherlands in Cork on Friday.
Their third-place end has secured a seeded play-off within the autumn they usually would be the group many will need to keep away from when the draw is made on 18 June given how they’ve shocked Poland twice and the Netherlands and run France ever so shut.
Ward’s overriding emotions when chatting with RTE had been delight tinged with ache that they could not recover from the road, though she was philosophical in how far they’ve come and the way far they will go.
“I am extremely happy with this group and I mentioned it to them there. We have a particular, particular group who work unbelievably laborious. It exhibits you every thing, the [French] scenes on the finish, they did not have it simple tonight,” she mentioned.
“France are a high, high aspect and the very fact we’re right here disenchanted tells you an terrible lot about the place we’re.
“You may take so many positives. This marketing campaign we now have grown and acquired higher and higher. Whether or not we had received, drawn or misplaced tonight we needed to proceed on the journey. We’re in a very good place going into October and that needs to be the main focus.”
