EILEEN GLEESON RUED a “super disappointing performance” as Ireland fell to their first defeat in nine games against Wales last night.
A record crowd of 8,218 watched the 2-0 defeat at Tallaght Stadium, where a late injury concern to Katie McCabe added salt to the wounds.
The Irish captain limped off in the 73rd minute, with Gleeson confirming a quad strain afterwards. McCabe was heavily strapped earlier in the game and appeared to pull up while running, but the Arsenal star was walking freely after the full time whistle. She will now be assessed.
Jess Fishlock and Lily Woodham scored for the visitors inside 22 minutes as Ireland fell asunder in a dreadful first half.
“I think the first half we killed ourselves,” Gleeson reflected as her unbeaten start came to an end. “Nowhere near anything we anticipated in terms of our own performance.
“Obviously didn’t do the simple things right, picking up runners at corners, marking at second balls, and then taking care of the ball, we didn’t do it.
“We lost a lot of the ball ourself, and it went up and back into the middle. We can only take responsibility for that ourselves.
“Second half, I thought we were better. We obviously changed it to get two up top, and I thought Emily [Murphy] done well on her debut coming on and Kyra [Carusa] did well sticking the ball for us. But yeah, a super disappointing performance but something we have to respond to.
“We didn’t feel we performed to our ability tonight, so that is one thing we can take as a learning. Nobody’s happy with the performance.”
On the record crowd, she continued: “That makes it even more disappointing that we didn’t give them a better performance to take away, better performance, better result.”
Gleeson stuck with a back four for the opening period, having changed Ireland’s set-up for Friday’s impressive 0-0 draw away to Italy. The formation, though disjointed, was mostly 4-3-3 early on. She reverted to the tried-and-tested back three/five at half time.
“We talk about fours and fives here, but it’s back to the simple things: taking care of the ball, win the first and second ball, defending pick up your runner, don’t lose your runners, win the first ball. Those are the things we didn’t do.
“We wanted to affect the ball in the second half, so we were able to switch to the 3-5-2 and get Emily and Kyra up, which gave us better outlets I thought.”
Gleeson pointed to injuries and fatigue as other issues, and accepted Niamh Fahey’s late withdrawal from the XI with a quad issue as another unsettler, but insisted “we’re not blaming that”.
“As much as I am giving out, there are positives. Jess Ziu, a really good game, a bright aspect for tonight, and Emily Murphy coming on, she is strong and physical and understands the game.”
Ziu was a definite bright spark on her first full game for Ireland since sustaining an ACL injury in October 2022. The 21-year-old West Ham star was lively on the right wing and in the 10, having played just under 70 minutes on her international return against Italy.
“Personally it was good to pick up Player of the Match, it was my first 90 minutes in over 16 months so that felt good,” she said afterwards.
“As a collective and a team we were quite disappointed, we were off the pace. I don’t think we actually deserved to win. We didn’t show up.
“We just didn’t look like we were together as a team, we went in ones and twos pressing and didn’t get it right. They picked us off. We conceded two early enough goals and couldn’t get back into the game.
“I just don’t think we set ourselves up properly. Eileen and the staff did well in training but we didn’t bring it into the game ourselves. We just switched off and conceded two sloppy goals.”
“Personally I don’t really think I was up to the level either, I was a bit off tonight as well as all the girls,” she added.
“I’m delighted to get Player of the Match but I don’t think any of us deserved it tonight.”
Ireland will learn their Euro 2026 qualification fate in next Tuesday’s draw in Nyon.
Written by Emma Duffy and posted on the42.ie
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