Ireland manager Vera Pauw pushed back on critics of her side’s physical approach to their Stateside tour as she promised more of the same when her side and the World Cup holders meet again in St. Louis on Tuesday night.
As she confirmed she will be without Manchester United defender Aoife Mannion and newly-capped Gotham midfielder Sinead Farrelly for the second friendly of the trip at CityPark (kickoff 12.30am Irish time), Pauw insisted the tight and tough tactics which impressed many in Saturday’s opener in Texas will be seen again. This despite some online commentary in the US suggesting Ireland’s aggression had at times led to a rugby-style approach.
“How am I going to respond to this? We played Sweden and they said exactly the same thing, but Sweden had 24 fouls and we had three fouls. We are a team that within the rules of the game, we put pressure on an opponent,” said Pauw.
“That is why [US coach] Vlatko [Andonovski] wanted to play us – he told me. We will be fair but we will not give anything away. I don’t know why people say that on Twitter because what do you do? You don’t stop them going forward?”
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Andonovski was open on his intentions to make wholesale changes for a game that is the holders’ final tune-up before they name their World Cup squad. Pauw will not be doing likewise, instead suggesting Tuesday is just too good an opportunity to be spent solely on experimenting.
“You know we get the opportunity only once to play the world champions twice like this so we do not give away the second game for a chance to develop,” said the Dutchwoman. “We [take] what we have learned from the first game, we implement for the second game and that’s exactly the goal that we have. That’s our next step to July 20th.
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“Of course we will have a few players that we want to have a last look at and we will have some options that we will try. Every player has the chance or needs the chance to show themselves. We don’t make changes for changes sake. We’re not going to give players a game because it’s nice to play here in the stadium. We need to take every minute to be ready for the World Cup.”
Ruesha Littlejohn looks likely to come in for Farrelly in midfield with some defensive shuffling to cover for Mannion’s absence. Pauw did appear to confirm that Farrelly will be on the plane to Australia, a barely credible outcome for a player who had spent the better part of eight years away from the game.
“Sinead did not play for seven years ... she did remarkably well for us for 60 minutes. But ... she cannot recover in two days. We did not take a risk. Her body is more important than the outcome of tomorrow’s game,” said the manager.
“We are in daily contact with her coach because this situation is a bit special. Together we have a programme set up and we will go into the details next week to get her fitter and ready for the World Cup. So yes, if she is fit, there is a big chance she will be [in the squad].”
Midfielder Megan Connolly was sat alongside Pauw in the prematch press conference and said that the fight for World Cup places is fierce but friendly.
“Nobody is guaranteed a place, there is still a lot of time between now and July. As I said, it is a really good environment, this is a good group” said the Brighton star. “It feels like everyone who comes in feels like they have been part of it for a while. For us, we need to keep developing on and off the field and whoever comes in adds to it and we need to keep growing together.”
