Netherlands vs Republic of Ireland Preview: Live from Utrecht | 2027 WC Qualifiers | OFF THE BALL

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Irish football on off the ball.

Brought to you by Cadbury, a proud sponsor of the Republic of Ireland football teams.

This is News Talk.

This is off the ball.

Saturday here on News Talk, John Duggan with the 3-5.

And we can now check in with our reporter, Kathleen McNamy, a new trecht, head of the Rogue of Ireland's game against the Netherlands, tonight in the Women's World Cup qualifier.

How are you, Kathleen?

I'm doing good, John.

It's very misty here in New Trek after leaving a blue sky Dublin.

So I'm going the wrong way, apparently.

Hopefully the team are going the right way this evening, Kathleen.

First of all, the players are going to pick themselves up after a really heartbreaking night of the night.

Yeah, it's going to be a difficult one.

And the news of Denise of Sullivan's injury isn't really going to help with that either.

She's obviously such a pivotal player for the team.

I was in Italo on Tuesday night and it's one of the best performances I've seen from this team.

And as you know, like I've followed them all around the world at this stage.

I thought the physicality, the determination.

There was a mindset there that I don't think I've seen from this team.

You know, one of the big things that they've had to struggle with is whenever they go ahead

or whenever they're playing really well.

It's that time either side of half time, either about 10, 15 minutes before 10, 15 minutes afterwards.

Sometimes the concentration can fall a little bit.

And now we did see it happen a little bit later on when Melvin Mallard came on.

I think that was as much about her skill as a player.

And you know, she's doing incredibly well from Manchester United at the moment as well,

compared to what we've seen from them before where they totally shut off.

So definitely, I would have been interested to hear what Carter Ward has been saying to them all week

to try and get them into a headspace where, you know, you played really well,

but maybe just didn't get the result that they wanted on Tuesday.

What were we going to miss now with Denise of Sullivan's absence?

Well, Megan Connelly was talking about it in the press conference yesterday and said,

when Denise isn't on the pitch, it's like you're missing two players.

And that is really how key she is to this Arsenal team.

Now, the knee injury that she has is one that she has been struggling with for about a year now.

She actually missed one of her first ever Ireland counts as a result of it last year.

So what you're missing is just her speed, her technical ability,

her ability to make something out of nothing, you know,

she was really crucial to the role that Emily Murphy played on Tuesday.

That was really successful in terms of us being able to get behind the French defense alongside Katie McCabe.

So just not having someone of her stature and experience on the pitch is massive as well as the

what you're losing out in what she does because she does do the job of multiple players.

She can play in many different positions.

You know, you never know what part of the pitch she is going to turn up in

and how she is going to make it absolutely changing moment in a game.

I mean, look for the head of Cototo on Tuesday.

She would have scored a goal that would have been historic for the team in terms of this qualifying campaign.

So it's definitely something you want to see.

And Carla Ward is trying to play down reports yesterday that she potentially might have to go for surgery,

which means she'd missed the next window as well, which would be really, really tough one for Ireland.

That's the Poland game. So Katie McCabe, we know she's so committed. She's on a yellow.

So she just needs to be careful not to be suspended. She also was a bit of a niggle.

So a bit of a tie rope for her this evening.

Yeah, it really is. Now Carla Ward again said that she's okay after that niggle.

It was from the challenge that she had with Delamada in the game against France on Tuesday.

But that she's come through and train and find and fish.

I was chatting to a few Ireland fans earlier when I arrived and, you know, the yellow card came up.

And I thought it was interesting that some people were almost half questioning, you know,

where what would you do if you're in her situation?

You know, she obviously wants to play as much as she can.

But if she gets suspended for the Poland games, are those technically the bigger games for this side?

Because those are the ones that were expected to get some points from now.

You probably can't really think like that in those sort these are situations because he used to say that she doesn't get an injury

or something in the time between now and then.

And that means that she can't play anyways.

So yeah, she's going to be walking a very thin tight rope.

And also her reputation precedes her a little bit when it comes to these things.

And I think unfairly so at times when it comes to yellow cards.

So she's already going into games with that kind of hanging over a little bit.

So hopefully it's not going to be something that Netherlands looked to play out tonight.

They didn't get out of the group of the Euro's and Netherlands and they drew two two with Poland.

So where are they out of the moment, sir, Kathy?

They're really struggling at the moment.

They had a really, really poor Euro's, you know, a heavy defeat to France.

Also a heavy defeat to England.

And that game against Poland.

I don't think people really expected it to happen the way it did, but Poland went out against them.

And we're really, really strong.

New exactly the areas to target.

I think for Netherlands, they've been in this transitional period for a while now.

And kind of been happening since Wegman and her coaches left the setup and kind of moved into other areas.

You know, they haven't had the big name stars that we would expect from their football in a while in terms of across the pitch.

You know, this used to be a team of complete superpowers.

And we're going to watch them in the Euro's in England.

And they were just, they were fantastic to watch.

And the young players coming through were amazing.

You know, that was the tournament, the Daphne Van Domsler.

And kind of made her debut onto the scene after their Vesher and goalkeeper who'd been there for years and years and years.

It's got a sudden injury on the eve of the tournament.

And then she became one of the best young players to come out of the whole thing.

So they have been struggling, but they do still have great talents.

I mean, Vivi and Mirama, we've seen her this year in the Women's Super League.

She's really coming back into her own after that ACL injury.

And you know, it goes to show how long it actually does take to come back from one of those injuries.

But she's firing in the goals.

So that's going to be a name I would say on every artist person's lips and tonight to see what she can bring to the table.

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We're talking to Kathy McLean in the Utrecht ahead of the Netherlands match against the Republic of Ireland women's team,

woke up qualifier and remembered that Irish football and off the ball brought you by Cadbury, a proud sponsor of the Republic of Ireland football teams.

Like Emily Murphy used her pace very well.

They did nice.

Can she replicate that against the Dutch this evening?

What from an attacking point of view, are you looking to see Kathleen?

I think I would love to see more of the way that we used Emily Murphy on Tuesday.

If possible.

Now Denise was quite crucial to that time.

She was the one that was feeding the balls through to Emily Murphy.

The one thing I would have said after washing her, because I think it's probably the standout performance that she's had in Ireland,

Jersey, and it just goes to show what having regular club football has done for her.

But it felt like she would get herself into these incredible positions.

But then almost hesitate a little bit or turn around and look for like it's Katie coming through on my shoulders.

Denise coming through on my shoulder.

When she actually got herself into a brilliant spot and we know she can't score goals.

So I would just love to see even more confidence in her performance and even more ability to just take a chance and take a pop of goal.

I think another one we saw come on, Les in the game the other day was Amber Barrett.

She's obviously been absolutely killing it over in the league here in Europe,

because she has just been scoring goals weekend week out.

So is there a way that we can utilize her a little bit more?

Now she's a very different sort of player than compared to Emily Murphy in terms of

she'll be looking for the balls to kind of be sent towards her rather than Emily Murphy.

I think it could be able to create a little bit more herself.

So I think from an attacking option we saw from the Poland game that this,

this is a Netherlands team that you can score against across the two fixtures.

It was probably the one that we expected to do the better end.

So I think if we can get a couple of goals on the score sheet tonight,

it'll do wonders for the confidence of the side.

How are we set, you know, the Vera power.

She got us to the World Cup and then we didn't get to the euros and ride in Gleason.

Where is the team now compared to say that team that qualified for the World Cup,

not in terms of not only just the way we play the game,

Kathleen, but our future prospects are getting to Brazil.

I think the team itself is in a very different position to the one that went to the World Cup.

I think when you look back at that team, that was really a golden era team in terms of

a lot of players are either coming to the end of their careers or they were hitting their peaks.

The side had been together for a long, long time.

We had a very set 11 barring any injuries.

You know, it was pretty easy to tell match to match who was going to play.

I think under Eileen Gleason, we saw the start of that transition,

you know, the number of players that retired, that were really big to the team.

And then under Carla Ward, I think we're now starting to see the side

settle a little bit more into what identity they want to play with.

You know, you remember those first games that we played under her in Leabie

and everyone was at sixes and sevens.

It looked like Carla didn't know what sort of team that she wanted,

what system she wanted, the football she was trying to make them play,

just didn't suit the sides.

There was lots and lots of substitutes happening.

And I think what shoes they felt like for me,

anyways, was very much a settling of that and a settling down of,

okay, these are the players that we think are going to come through.

We have an identity, we have a physicality,

we have a motivation to us that we haven't in a while.

So I think if we can keep that up and it's not just a once-off,

especially in this group, it will serve us very well in terms of,

then hopefully getting to play off and getting to Brazil next summer.

But I think at the moment, we've only seen it properly from one game.

So I think the next couple of games will really settle what the future for this team is going to be.

And we also need some of the younger players, you know, to start really stepping up

and stepping into the shoes of the players that were that I have gone before them.

What's your crystal ball telling you about what you're going to see this evening

and maybe a verdict is what at the end of that crystal ball constantly?

I'm going to go for optimism and say a one-all draw for the night.

I think we need to get some points, especially after the fact that Poland got points against them the other week.

And in terms of crystal ball, I'm just hoping to see some players step up

in the fact that all the chat in the last 24 hours,

rightly so, has been about Denise.

If I was Carla Ward, I'd be thinking, well, who's going to be the player that steps up for me tonight?

Who's the player that makes it look like we don't miss there all that much?

And many Irish fans over there will be a decent contingent.

I mean, you've already seen some of them.

Yeah, I think there's over 200 traveling fans.

And David Carell, as well, was on my flight over this morning.

So the FAI are sending out a couple of the big wigs to watch the game.

I know there was a great group of people that gathered last night,

one of the Irish pubs here to watch the Welsh match.

So they've been having a couple of good days over a new track from what I've been hearing.

But yeah, the Irishmen and supporters club has done a great job of kind of gathering people together ahead of the game tonight.

They're having another big event so that people can go to the stadium together

and making sure they're all sat together and things.

So, yeah, hopefully we'll be painting Utrecht Green.

Speak tomorrow, Kathleen, thank you.

Thanks, Sean.

Irish football.

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