‘I'll be switching the TV off' - Euro play-off pain still raw for Ireland star
The Girls in Green star may make an exception if there's a game featuring any of her North Carolina Courage teammates.
Otherwise, she will steer clear of coverage of the tournament - one that Ireland were favourites to reach when they drew Wales in last year's decider.
Having drawn 1-1 in Cardiff in Cardiff, they lost the return leg 2-1 at the Aviva Stadium.
'We've learnt a lot (from that defeat),' she said. 'It still hurts a lot because the pain hasn't gone from that game.
'I think I'll be switching the TV off, doing everything I can not to watch it but I have teammates from Courage playing in it.
'I know I'm saying I'll be switching the TV off but I'll watch to cheer them on. It's still devastating not to be there, for sure.'
O'Sullivan hopes to channel that pain when it comes to Ireland's Nations League promotion/relegation play-off next October.
Finishing second in League B to Slovenia, despite Tuesday's 1-0 win at Páirc Uí Chaoimh against the table-toppers, means it's a two-legged clash against one of Austria, Iceland, Belgium and Denmark for a spot in the top-tier next year.
Winning that tie and qualifying for League A in time for the World Cup qualifiers would guarantee Ireland, at the very least, a play-off shot at making Brazil in 2027.
The draw will be made on Friday and O'Sullivan said: 'It's another chance in October. We'll be ready for that. At least having another chance is a positive.'
'We have experience (from the Wales play-off) under our belt. I've heard the team names (of potential opponents), all high level so we'll have to be ready for that, but it's another chance for us.
'We want to be at the World Cup in Brazil. That defeat against Wales from last year can stand to us going into the play-off.'
O'Sullivan, meanwhile, is ready to step up and take on even more leadership responsibilities in the absence of retired stars Louise Quinn, Niamh Fahey, Diane Caldwell and Julie-Ann Russell.
'Losing Louise, Fahey, Diane and Julie-Ann, so many at the same time, is really tough on the team,' she said.
'So I think Katie (McCabe), Courtney (Brosnan), myself and a few others must take the responsibility of driving the team on.
'As the games continue, we'll continue trying to do that and get better at it.'
O'Sullivan will be available for Ireland's friendlies at the end of the month in the USA.
'It's my one week in the whole year I get off from Courage but that's okay. I'm happy to play because any chance I get playing for my country I want to be there. I'll be there,' she said.
'I'm excited. For once, I don't have to travel 20 hours. I won't have jet lag but the rest will.
'I'm looking forward to it. USA are a top, top team and we can go out to challenge ourselves. It will be a brilliant experience.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The 42
24 minutes ago
- The 42
Women's Rugby World Cup to offer players 'mental health support'
WOMEN'S RUGBY WORLD chiefs have promised to offer players 'mental health support' after saying female athletes are '30% more likely' to suffer social media abuse than their male counterparts. While the likes of tournament hosts England are a professional side who have become used to increasing scrutiny, several of the other 15 competing teams are semi-professional or amateur outfits for whom the World Cup will provide a whole new level of exposure. 'Supporting athletes, having an athlete-centred approach, I think, is fundamental to everything that the competition is doing and that we are doing at World Rugby,' said Sally Horrox, the global governing body's head of women's rugby. 'So our performance teams have been working very closely on programmes with the unions to make sure that there is mental health support, for example, for those athletes who are away from home. 'Some of them have families, some of them have other jobs. The game in many parts of the world is still an amateur to semi-professional game, so they will be experiencing something very, very different. Advertisement 'So we take our responsibilities very seriously.' Tournament organisers said Tuesday they expected the 27 September final at Twickenham to feature a sell-out crowd of over 80,000 — a record for any women's rugby match. More than 375,000 tickets have been sold across all 32 matches at this World Cup, with a huge global television audience anticipated as well. 'We're ready to break records in attendances, viewership and engagement,' tournament director Sarah Massey said during Tuesday's launch event at Twickenham. 'This is going to be the biggest global celebration of women's rugby that we have ever seen.' But with that opportunity come attendant risks and World Rugby, in April, announced a collaboration with the Signify Group to use the data organisation's 'Threat Matrix' that monitors social media platforms to detect and report abusive posts and comments. 'No one deserves that type of abuse in this environment,' said Horrox. 'And sadly, female athletes, are 30% more likely to experience this type of abuse than men.' World Cup favourites England open the tournament against the United States in the north-east city of Sunderland on Friday, with the Americans boasting a breakout social media star in Ilona Maher, who has amassed over eight million followers. The Red Roses named their team for the opener this afternoon, John Mitchell selecting an unchanged side from their final warm-up game. They beat France 40-6 in the second of two tune-ups earlier this month. Here we go 🌹 John Mitchell has named his Red Roses to face the USA in our #RWC2025 opener 👇#WearTheRose | #RedRoses — Red Roses (@RedRosesRugby) August 20, 2025 – © AFP 2025 With reporting from Press Association
RTÉ News
an hour ago
- RTÉ News
England go with unchanged XV for Rugby World Cup opener against the USA
England have named an unchanged side from their final warm-up game for their Women's Rugby World Cup opener against the United States in Sunderland on Friday. Red Roses boss John Mitchell has kept faith with the same starting 15 from the 40-6 victory over France, their second of two warm-up fixtures which took place earlier this month. Skipper Zoe Aldcroft leads the squad at blindside flanker, with number eight Alex Matthews and openside Sadia Kabeya alongside her in the back row and Abbie Ward and Morwenna Talling lining up in the second row. Hannah Botterman, Amy Cokayne and Maud Muir complete the forwards. Vice-captain Megan Jones continues at centre alongside Tatyana Heard, while Jess Breach, Abby Dow and Ellie Kildunne make up the back three, Natasha Hunt starts at scrum-half and Zoe Harrison is at fly-half. World Cup debutants Kelsey Clifford, Maddie Feaunati and Emma Sing are named as replacements and veteran Emily Scarratt is also on the bench as she prepares for her fifth tournament. England v USA: Ellie Kildunne, Abby Dow, Megan Jones, Tatyana Heard, Jess Breach, Zoe Harrison, Natasha Hunt; Hannah Botterman, Amy Cokayne, Maud Muir, Morwenna Talling, Abbie Ward, Zoe Aldcroft (capt), Sadia Kabeya, Alex Matthews.
Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Everton's new stadium along Liverpool's River Mersey was 11 years in the making
DAN Meis received an intriguing prompt 11 years ago. 'I had a young business development guy that said, 'Hey, if I can give you a meeting with Everton will you go to Liverpool?'' the stadium design expert recalled. 'And I said: 'They're not going to hire a Los Angeles architect.' I sort of saw them as like the Cubs of the Premier League, historic and provincial.' Meis, the architect of Seattle's T-Mobile Park, Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field and Los Angeles' Arena, listened to Joshua Boren of his staff and was picked to turn Everton's long-hoped-for stadium into a reality, The Toffees play their first official match in 52,769-capacity Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday, their Premier League home opener against Brighton. 'This is going to help us win on the pitch more, because this revenue that we're going to generate, rather than being seen as a cash grab, The Friedkin Group have committed to recycle that straight back,' Everton CEO Angus Kinnear said of the club's new owner. Everton had played at Goodison Park since moving from Anfield for the 1892-93 season and its ground was the site of five matches during the 1966 World Cup, including Pelé's only World Cup defeat. Its capacity of 39,414 ranked 10th in the EPL last season, while Hill Dickinson is seventh, trailing Manchester United, Tottenham, West Ham, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City. There are 5,246 premium seats in the €925m stadium, four times the 1,300 at the old venue. It is built on 21.4 acres (8.7 hectares) to Goodison's eight (3.25). Fans have 279 wheelchair positions, 58 accessible toilets, 20 gender-neutral toilets, 95 baby-changing facilities and 19 elevators. A 17,000-capacity fan plaza can host outdoor events, adjacent to the restored Hydraulic Tower and Engine Room dating to 1883, and Everton Way outside the stadium includes 36,000 personalised granite stones with supporters' names, which cost 99 to 750 pounds apiece (currently $134 to $1,012). 'The stadium looks the business. It looks elite,' manager David Moyes said when he returned in January. 'So we need to start getting some elite players.' Everton has nine league titles, the last in 1987, less than half the 20 each of Liverpool and Manchester United, and in 2023 was threatened with relegation until the season's final day. It has long been its city's second-biggest team, Everton's blue outnumbered by Liverpool's red. 'Whilst on a global scale Liverpool is bigger, in the city it feels like an equal split to me,' Kinnear said. 'When you look at postcode analysis, there's more Liverpool postcodes in our season ticket base than there are in Liverpool's.' US architect Dan Meis. Players have a circular home locker room with an adjacent hydrotherapy pool. Hill Dickinson has 15 of what the team terms bars, restaurants and experiences along with 274 points of sale and 137 bathrooms. The new ground is two miles (3.2kms) from Goodison, which sits across Stanley Park from Anfield and will be used going forward by Everton's women's team. After exploring building in Walton Hall Park and suburban Kirkby, Everton picked the Bramley-Moore Dock along the River Mersey as its preferred site in 2017, and ground was broken in 2021. A dredger made 130 round trips into the Irish Sea to collect nearly 17 million cubic feet (480,000 cubic meters) of sand to fill in the dock area over three months. Three months after The Friedkin Group bought control of the team from Farhad Moshiri, Everton said this past March it had obtained 350 million pounds (then $451.5 million) in long-term financing for the stadium. The first test match took place the next month involving the Toffees' under-18 team, and in May, Everton announced a naming rights agreement with the Hill Dickinson law firm. The senior team's first appearance was at an Aug. 9 friendly against Roma. 'It's going to take a bit of us getting used to it completely,' Moyes said. 'It's a step up, certainly, from Goodison.' UEFA has picked the stadium as a site for the 2028 European Championship. Meis' flight for the initial pitch meeting was an hour late and his train delayed another hour before he finally saw then-CEO Robert Elstone, who explained the club's unique history. 'All they care about is sort of this cauldron of energy and the experience,' Meis recalled. Bill Kenwright, Everton's longtime chairman, gave Meis challenging instructions. 'He said: 'I want something that's both historic and contemporary. It has to look to the future,'' Meis recalled. Meis made his first of about 30 trips to the site in 2016 and began sketching ideas, even before the final location selection. Brickwork, concrete benches and steel fencing on the site boundary pays homage to Goodison Park's Archibald Leitch-designed latticework. 'You can see this kind of very traditional brick base that feels like the Titanic or the other buildings around there, but it had this very swoopy kind of space-age looking roof kind of coming out of it and that was the blue wave,' Meis said. Everton fans supplied their opinions. Lots of them. 'I became sort of Twitter connected to 70,000 collaborators on a daily basis and they were telling me: We need one more seat at least than Anfield,' Meis said. 'I kept trying to explain to these fans that were so adamant about it, bigger is not necessarily better.' Seats are raked at 34.99 degrees, close to the legal limit of 35. 'For all of the amenities that modern buildings need, and obviously the owners need the revenue from those other things, the food and beverage offerings, but the fans in English football, they still care most about being right on top of the pitch, as close as they can, as steep as they can be,' Meis said. Associated Press
