If absence makes the heart grow fonder, Carla Ward's Ireland and their Polish opponents will be sick of each other after their second World Cup qualifier in five days.
The Republic of Ireland travelled to Gdansk on Tuesday and returned home with all three qualifying points.
Goals from Emily Murphy, Katie McCabe and Marissa Sheva gave the Girls in Green a fully deserved win against the side ranked 24th in the world and now they hope to repeat the trick on home soil.
There’s certainly room for improvement from Ireland, who despite being the better side throughout in Poland, still opened the door for the hosts to come into the game twice.
Tanja Pawollek gave the home side a lifeline after Ireland rushed into a 2-0 lead; before Ewa Pajor struck to make it 3-2 and set up a big finish with a goal out of nothing that Ireland really should have been smart to.
Smarter game management is likely to be where much of Ward’s pre-match focus has been, given how they let Poland back into the match, but aside from that, there were few holes to pick in their performance.
The victory lifted Ireland to third in their qualifying group, behind the Netherlands and France and a win in Dublin would all but assure Ward’s team finish ahead of Poland in the group and hand them a kinder play-off draw.
Ireland are already guaranteed a play-off spot if they fail to take the one automatic qualification place on offer, which is realistically going to go to either the Netherlands or France.
The runners-up and third-place team from Ireland’s group will be drawn against the group winners and two best-ranked runners-up from League C, while the bottom placed side from Ireland’s group will take on a League B team.
Victory will leave Ireland with a likely unassailable lead over Poland in third place and while they're never going to concede that an unlikely top-spot finish is beyond them, privately, finishing third would have been the minimum requirement going into third campaign.
Poland started the campaign with similar aspirations to Ireland and claimed an impressive 2-2 draw with the Netherlands last month which further raised expectations.
While hoping for a similar result to the one in Gdansk, Ward foresees a different kind of game and believes that the visitors will have learned a lot from Tuesday.
The Ireland boss expects a backlash. "We know Poland have got a lot of quality, we've spoken about that before," she said. "They've shown that against really good sides and got a really good point against the Netherlands, so I think we can expect a reaction.
"They'll adapt and we'll have to adapt to what they might do, as well as they adapt to what we might want to do.
"If anyone thinks it's going to be similar games, they are mistaken. We have to treat it as a different game, we have to be prepared for that and we will be.
Ireland captain Katie McCabe can't wait to lead out the Girls in Green with Poland the visitors to Aviva Stadium #RTESport #RTESoccer pic.twitter.com/VhYRAUQ0nU
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) April 17, 2026
"This group are hungry to be better all the time and the only thing we've properly discussed is how we improve. We will potentially tweak things and go into this game knowing how they might react, but also prepare. We've got enough quality and if we're on it we're going to take three points."
Ward has a few extra options going into the game with Kyra Carusa and Ruesha Littlejohn both coming back into the reckoning.
Carusa missed out on the game in Poland due to a bout of illness while Littlejohn suffered an Achilles flare-up which forced her to sit on the sidelines on Tuesday.
Both have been passed fit and Carusa in particular could make an immediate return to the starting line-up in place of Abbie Larkin, who lined up alongside the hugely impressive Murphy last time out.
Poland, meanwhile, will be without the services of Milena Kokosz, who came on off the bench in their 3-2 defeat but picked up an injury that rules her out of the trip to Dublin.
Poland manager Nina Patalon is looking for an improved performance against the Irish and was particularly annoyed with how slowly they started at home.
"The first half of our play was far from what we expected," she said, admitting that they had problems in breaking down the Irish defence.
"We struggled with organisation in a low-lying defense. We were prepared for this type of play from our opponents, but due to a lack of discipline in our positioning, we conceded goals, which allowed us to gain advantage in the side areas.
"Ireland were very well organised in defense, which was evident when we were chasing the score. They showed their ability to defend."
Victory over Ireland would see Poland leapfrog their hosts into that coveted third place and the visitors' boss boss is confident that her side can turn things around, approaching the game almost as a knock-out tie.
"We now know much more about how Ireland plays and we'll meet again. I hope the girls are upset, but I'm glad we're playing the return leg on Saturday.
"The first half of this two-legged tie favoured the opponents," she said. "I'm convinced the second match will be completely different."
Watch Republic Ireland v Poland in FIFA Women's World Cup qualifying on Saturday from 2.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app. Listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
