Carla Ward affirmed that Ireland ‘can compete with the very best’ after her Irish charges pushed France all the way in Tallaght on Tuesday night.
France were second best for long periods of the FIFA World Cup qualifier and after Katie McCabe had given Ireland an early lead, Ireland looked to be heading for all three points. However a Melvine Malard double scuppered Irish hopes.
Carla Ward spoke to the media after Ireland’s gutsy if eventually fruitless performance against France. The Halfway Line was present to hear from her.
Carla Ward ‘gutted’ but ‘hugely proud’ of Irish performance
Ireland are ranked 20 places below France in the FIFA World Rankings but their performance belied that statistic. Ward admitted she was disappointed but proud of her charges,
“First and foremost, hugely proud of the group” Ward said.
“I think. I’m not gonna lie, I’m gutted, and if you’re gutted, coming on the back of a defeat against one of the best in the world, it probably tells you that I feel like we should have got more from it. So, yeah, disappointed, but huge amount of pride for for everybody out there.”
Ward continued, explaining that she and Laurent Bonadei discussed the encounter after the match,
“Yeah, I’d like to know who were the last team to have 11 shots on target against France” Ward said.
“I mean, he [Laurent Bonadei] said to me at the end, actually, he said, best team we’ve played in a very long time. He said, the fight the way you controlled the game without the ball, which is funny, because we spoke about a lot, a lot about that, over this last week.
“But how do we control the game without the ball? And yeah, I’m not sure many teams get that many opportunities against France.
“So that’s a credit to the group, because I think I said to you guys in the room in the week that, yes, we know we’re going to be about the ball, but we still want to play with the ball.
“We spent all year trying to develop a style with the ball and a confidence and a belief with the ball, and I’m just delighted that we’ve managed to showcase that tonight.
“And I said to the group that if we continue to do that, then we’ll get to where we want to get to, which is the World Cup. But, yeah, it’s a tough one to take tonight.”
Ward did not mince her words either when asked for her key takeaway from the match,
“We can compete. We can compete with the very best” Ward exclaimed with pride.
‘Katie’s Katie’ lauds Carla Ward
Two of Ward’s star players Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan both seemed to be carrying knocks in the match. Ward explained frankly about O’Sullivan’s fitness for the Dutch test on Saturday,
“The honest answer is, I don’t know” Ward said.
“Denise, of course, wants to stay on the pitch every minute of every day. That’s just Denise. She’s so important to us, but equally, we don’t want to risk her.
“So there was a conversation with the medical team, because she’s got an ongoing niggle in her knee. She’ll be assessed tonight, but I don’t know if she’ll be a doubt for the weekend, but yeah, she certainly didn’t want to come off.”
As for Katie McCabe, Ward explained,
“I think it was a she got a slight niggle in that tackle” Ward said.
“You know, when she slipped over, [when] she got booked. I don’t know how many people were close to it. She actually slipped over, there was no intent.
“But as she slipped, I think she’s just caught herself slightly. So that’s why we swapped her and Chloe [Mustaki] over just to give her a bit of respite and get Chloe [forward] because she [McCabe] was struggling to accelerate after that, but you wouldn’t have known, because Katie’s Katie, and she does a terrific job.”
Mustaki smarts allow McCabe to be ‘more aggressive’ says Ward
Since the emphatic victory over Belgium at the AVIVA, Chloe Mustaki has become a regular at left centre back for Ireland. She has excelled in the position for Nottingham Forest too and The Halfway Line asked Ward about Mustaki,
“Yeah, I think when we were out in the US, I think she showed how well she defends those channels” Ward explained.
“And it allows Katie to be a little bit more aggressive, and certainly with the way when we go back to Hungary and I said I didn’t like something. I didn’t like the press.
“So then, coming away from Spain, we said that we knew we had to get our wing backs way higher and way more aggressive earlier.
“Chloe allows Katie to do that, as does Patsy [Anna Patten] with Aoife [Mannion]. So it gives a bit of balance for us to be able to play in that way.”
