Katie McCabe has defiantly backed the Republic of Ireland to "go again" after their gallant performance in defeat to France at Tallaght Stadium.
The Girls in Green were agonisingly close to snatching a point against the world's No 7-ranked team when Denise O’Sullivan lashed an effort goalward deep into stoppage time. Alas, Marie-Antoinette Katoto was in the right place at the right time to nod it clear and earn the visitors a 2-1 victory.
Ireland arguably deserved a share of the points but such is life among the big guns in this World Cup qualification campaign. They take on the Netherlands in Utrecht on Saturday night in what will be another huge challenge, one that will test Irish minds and bodies to the limit.
Still stinging from the loss to Les Bleus, McCabe admitted harsh lessons had to be heeded, but she’s upbeat about the prospects of pulling of a shock.
"There’s a long way to go," said the captain. "There's five more games. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. We need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off. I know this team, and I know this mentality we have in the team. We've got every belief that we can go again.
"It’s disappointing. We obviously wanted to win it, we felt we could get something out of the game and ultimately we didn’t. We can’t fault anyone’s effort, our discipline, our mentality, what was being asked by the manager of us. But two soft goals to concede, we need to fix it up and get going for Saturday."
GOAL IRELAND
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 3, 2026
🇮🇪 1-0 🇫🇷
Katie McCabe starts and finishes the move to put the Girls in Green ahead!
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It started so swimmingly well for Ireland on Tuesday night with McCabe steering home a high-quality opener 12 minutes in. Ultimately France’s deep reservoir of talent swung things, Melvine Malard coming off the bench to fire a decisive brace.
In the group’s other contest, an impressive Poland held the Dutch to a 2-2 draw. Nothing is going to come easy for the Girls in Green over the next couple of months.
"I think it just shows the strength of the group even more so," McCabe said of the Poland result.
"We're obviously pushing France to the end of the game. We could have got the equaliser and then you've got the Netherlands and Poland drawing and scoring goals. So it just shows how strong this group is, but ultimately it's about the points at the end of the day and we need to be making sure we can see games out a little bit better."
Perhaps the biggest positive in Tuesday’s display was the impact McCabe and Emily Murphy made as an attacking force down Ireland’s left side.
Murphy was electric at times, a constant thorn in France’s side. If the Dutch are to be exposed on Saturday, the 23-year-old will be key.
"Murphy done fantastic," added McCabe. "She’s in good form in the minute, especially for her country. We need more of it, we need more threats going forward. I felt she done an incredible job as did the rest of the team.
"I think we showed a lot of positive moments, the girls worked incredibly hard up top, Murph especially, putting herself in between the defender and getting us up the pitch. A lot of to be proud of. But we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. We’ll obviously dissect it, it stings. But we need to make sure we’re fully focused to go again on Saturday."
Watch Netherlands v Republic of Ireland in World Cup qualifying on Saturday from 7.15pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on the RTÉ News App and on rte.ie/sport. Listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
