Carla Ward strikes only positive notes ahead of World Cup playoff against Poland

The upbeat feeling around Carla Ward’s Republic of Ireland squad continues apace as only Poland stand in their way of reaching a second successive World Cup in Brazil next summer.Ireland travel to Gdańsk on Tuesday, December 1st before the second leg at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, December 5th. The major tournament breakthrough for women’s football in Ireland happened at the 2023 tournament in Australia, under the guidance of Vera Pauw, when the sparks of inspiration seemed overly reliant on Katie McCabe and Denise O’Sullivan. Both McCabe and O’Sullivan remain vital to the cause but others, like Abbie Larkin and Marissa Sheva, seem more important than ever before. READ MORE“Ten goalscorers across two games [to beat Kazakhstan 12-0 on aggregate], find me another country that has done that?” Ward asked. “Everybody is contributing now.”Momentum stalled two years ago under Eileen Gleeson, who had replaced Pauw, with a crushing defeat to Wales at the Aviva Stadium to miss out on the Euros. That low point, which prompted a raft of retirements, can be addressed in the second leg back at the Aviva against Poland in December. “Forget Wales,” Ward insisted, “we have come a long way since that game. Let’s forget about it!“What you are seeing now is a completely different type of football. I think we are a better team now, better than the team that beat Poland twice earlier in the year. “Why wouldn’t you want to come and support this team?” she added about the move from Cork to Dublin. “The team has been superb all year. We are good on the ball now.” O’Sullivan, the deserving player of the match, concurred: “I think players are stepping up massively now. We’ve a really good team with players all over the pitch stepping up.”Ireland beat Poland on two occasions last April, 3-2 away and 1-0 at the Aviva, but in Ewa Pajor they have a world-class forward who is a star at Barcelona in La Liga. “I saw them beat Belgium tonight,” said Ward. “We can have a good look at them now. We know them, they know us. We know we got the toughest draw. Even England didn’t want Poland or Belgium, but our team is growing all the time. “Let’s be really honest, Poland will want revenge but I thought we were dominant home and away to them. I do think we are a better team now. We got depth now. We got competition in every position. “It could come down to that added edge and togetherness that we now have.“We prepared in this camp as if we were playing a top 10 team in the world.”The question now is how Ward gets Abbie Larkin, Emily Murphy, Kyra Carusa and Marissa Sheva into the same starting 11. “We can’t pick the team but this camp has answered some questions about players and positions. Now it is about keeping them fit and hopefully they put themselves first in the coming weeks. I shouldn’t say that, but it is true.”