Katie McCabe has praised the ‘development’ of the Ireland WNT under Carla Ward stating that the team is ‘in a really good place’.
McCabe was speaking ahead of Ireland’s second match against Poland in five days. The Girls in Green were 3-2 victors on Tuesday and return to the Aviva on Saturday in the hopes of a similar result. The Halfway Line was present at the match day minus one press conference yesterday to hear from McCabe.
Ireland’s League A group ‘wide open’ says Katie McCabe
When Ireland are in League A, they tend to be drawn in difficult groups. In the previous League A campaign they had France, Sweden and England and this time they’ve got Netherlands, France and Poland.
In fact Ireland’s group is the only group where every team has scored five goals or more, each other group has at least one team that has scored only one goal. McCabe reflected on the state of play, halfway through the qualifying league phase,
“I think we’re in one of the hardest groups to be honest” McCabe said. “Like you’ve seen, you could argue Netherlands are missing some of the best players the other night and then they go and beat France. And just think it shows that you can’t have any complacency in this group, whether that’s gone into tomorrow or the games in June.
“It’s wide open, so we need to be fully focused on what we’re trying to do and how we’re going to achieve and put ourselves in the best position come the end of June.”
Katie McCabe says ‘development’ is key for Ireland
Katie McCabe has played over 100 matches for Ireland, never more so than now in her Ireland career have Ireland so consistently come up against the very best. McCabe explained why it is so important Ireland retain their League A status,
“I think the key word there to use is development” McCabe explained. “We’ve obviously been up and down in the past but for us to improve as a team, we need to be challenging the best teams and playing against the best teams in the world.
“That’s being in League A is all about. Of course, obviously it helps with play off and seeded and unseeded positions and so forth come the end of the year. But for us to improve as a team and really challenge each other and get ourselves out of our comfort zones, we need to be playing against these teams, so it’s massively important for us to be building off each performance and getting results.
“So I know obviously, going back to last camp, we were disappointed not coming away with anything from both games. And so it was really important for us to kind of build off the positives and go into that game against Poland the other night, and so I was very proud of the team for getting the three points on Tuesday.”
Ireland squad are ‘in a really good place’ says McCabe
Carla Ward has now been in charge of Ireland for almost 15 months. McCabe explained the Irish side’s development under Ward and how it continues to happen,
“It’s a process, right?” McCabe said. “We’ve got, obviously, a real steady core squad now, where Carla’s implemented how she wants to play her principles, the framework of how we want to win games and have success on the pitch.
“I think there’s a really good understanding, as always, when you spend more time together and you build off, and we spend more time with Carla camp after camp, understanding how she gets the best from us and what we need from Carla as a coach as well, to support us too.
“So there’s that understanding from each other. And I think, I think we’re in a really good place. I think for us it’s to keep our feet on the ground. Of course, we beat Poland the other night but I know this squad is humble in terms of our mentality and what way we think going into games.
“And yeah, I think to summarize, we’re going to be going into a fantastic game tomorrow. Again, Poland are an unbelievable team, we need to have our feet fairly on the ground, going into tomorrow afternoon.”
When asked if she allows herself to think of Brazil yet, McCabe’s response was to the point, “not yet” she said not giving anything away.
You can watch Ireland vs Poland on RTÉ 2 with kick off at 3pm on Saturday afternoon. Tickets are still available for purchase with a crowd of almost 20,000 currently expected.
