Ireland v Australia: ‘We don’t fear anyone,’ says Vera Pauw in advance of World Cup kick-off

The lead story on Morning 9 News was about four dingoes attacking a woman running on the beach of K’gari [Fraser Island], off Queensland. The 24-year-old suffered 30 lacerations to her arms, legs and torso. She’s in a stable condition in hospital after two local men raced into the surf to fight off the wild dogs.

“Don’t run if approached,” warned the local chief ranger Linda Behrendorff, who handed out plastic poles to joggers before rejecting calls to hunt the canine pack.

“Culling in the situation on K’gari is not an option.”

Flash back to a Sydney studio and the resident Ron Burgundy has one of the poles in hand and proceeds to bang the coffee table.

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“Bad dingo!” he roars, belting the table some more. “Eh!? Bad dingo!”

Bang, bang.

Fits and giggles all round as a colleague interjects: “We’d like to apologise to all the innocent dingoes out there.

“And now sports, where Sam Kerr’s Matildas are gearing up for a historic night against Ireland.”

Katie, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Tallaght any more.

“It’s great that we are actually here now,” said a smiling Katie McCabe, the Ireland skipper and Arsenal star. “We don’t just want to create history, we want to leave a legacy as well back at home. We want to have girls and boys looking at us tomorrow morning when they wake up and see us walk out. We want the whole nation behind us.”

The Australians are focused on carving their own piece of sporting history at the Women’s World Cup but back in Brisbane – from where the Irish squad only departed for Sydney on Wednesday morning – manager Vera Pauw this week waxed lyrical about Wim Kieft. Pauw was playing to the gallery, claiming the goal that broke Irish hearts back at Euro 88 would never have survived a VAR check.

The many faces of the Dutch coach have been revealed this past fortnight. Mercifully, there is no more talk of the Houston Dash. Same goes for the Colombia Affair.

Pauw thrives in chaos. “I will be the storm” is her mantra.

This moment is not about “I” but “we”, she repeatedly assures the travelling media, but when asked what this Sydney showdown means to her personally, she responds: “It is the crown of my career.”

“Is that how you say it?”

It is exactly how she said it.

Pauw was former FAI performance director Ruud Dokter’s parting gift to Irish football. He initially approached her to unearth a coach to replace Colin Bell, who left for Huddersfield Town before rerouting to South Korea.

Eventually Dokter offered Pauw the gig. She declined the first time, accepted on the umpteenth time of asking. Or so the story goes.

“Because he could not find the right person,” said Pauw. “I am using his words now, every time I gave different names, it didn’t suit. Not the right person. He said can we at least talk – and I thought at least, I will give him the chance.

“And he made the best decision not to come himself because he knew me, and I knew him, and we didn’t have to say anything to each other.

“Ruud had to convince me for weeks to do [the Irish job in 2019],” she recalled. “Even though I loved the team from the first moment I saw them, stepping into a development programme again was not what I wanted.

There is no question that Pauw’s blunt, exacting methods have yielded incomparable results

“But then when I spoke to the CEO [then Noel Mooney] and the president [Donal Conway] in Frankfurt, and they spoke of the serious way they wanted to develop women’s football, I felt that I would not be the only one pulling the cart, it would be with the whole office and people who wanted to do something special.”

After that meeting in the German airport, Pauw was sold.

“They made me feel [there was] a collective aim and that is why my husband [Bert van Lingen] said you are going to sign this, because this was the first moment in years he had seen those twinkles in my eyes again.”

Mooney, now the CEO of the Welsh FA, chimed in yesterday: “In 2019, we believed she was the right person at the right time to deliver on the potential of the team. And she has succeeded.”

Sounds like Mooney would welcome her to Cardiff with open arms but whether Dokter’s successor, Marc Canham, a vastly different operator to the Dutchman, will allow Pauw to guide Ireland into qualification for Switzerland 2025 remains to be seen.

For this to happen Ireland needs to escape the Group of Life – also featuring Australia, Canada and Nigeria – and even then Canham and current FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill may look for a less contentious manager.

There is no question that Pauw’s blunt, exacting methods have yielded incomparable results. No doubt her 47 years in football will be studied and debated. She married her former national coach, Van Lingen, and he became the story at the end of a media briefing this week.

Did Bert ever coach at a major tournament [we meant during his nine years as Dutch women’s manager]?

“Yeah, remember Euro 88? He was the assistant. He has been to the most World Cups and European Championships probably of any coach in the world. He has been at youth level, at senior level, he has been in Mexico with the under-20s with [Marco] Van Basten and [Frank] Rijkaard generation, built them up.

“The ‘94 World Cup, Euro ‘92 in Sweden and ‘96 in England, the 2002 World Cup with Russia, all the cups he did.”

The subject of Gelsenkirchen and that unforgettable sea of orange on June 18th, 1988 is too good to ignore. She spins the nearest iPhone, transforming it into Parkstadion, revealing her superior view to the linesman on the day.

“Wim Kieft was there [she points] when he scored the goal and I was right in line, so I turned to my brother immediately and said ‘this was offside’. But that Dutch team deserved a major championship!”

Packie Bonner and Paul McGrath would disagree.

A new day has dawned for Irish football and Pauw remains at the centre of this unique story but by lunchtime, ideally, a few women players will have created more memories to stir the Irish psyche.

But beware the Matildas, looking as fierce and hungry as the dingoes of K’gari.

“We don’t fear anyone,” said Pauw. “The pitch is the same size. The goals are the same size.

“We are coming here as debutants, we are experiencing the World Cup at a level we would have never expected to be before.

“It is amazing, just embrace it. We want this and we are going to go for it.”