Ireland Women 3 Georgia Women 0 – Tallaght Stadium – 29/11/2024
A half term trip to Dublin with the family just happened to
coincide with the second leg of the Euro 2025 play offs, which saw Ireland take
on Georgia at the home of Shamrock Rovers FC in the south of the capital city.
With the winners facing one more play off game after this before they’d be
guaranteed a spot at the big show next year. As it turned out Ireland had won
the first leg 6-0 in Georgia the previous Thursday, but I was still happy to be
seeing an international game at a new venue for me.
As soon as the tickets went on sale I logged on to
Ticketmaster Ireland and picked two up for my son and I. For some reason the
Irish site was much easier to use than it’s UK counterpart and it was all done
very smoothly. I then messaged Bartley the Finn Harps and Ireland fan who I had
been in Twitter contact with for a few years now. I knew would be going to see
where he was sitting and he managed to get the ticket next to us.
Tallaght Stadium is right at the end of the red Luas Tram
Line that serves the Dublin area, it took just over half an hour from O’Connell
Street in the city centre to take us there and the return ticket for the two of
us was just over 5 Euro. It was standing room only on the tram with a mix of
commuters and people decked out in Ireland gear going to the game, but it asl
ran very smoothly.
Once we got off the Luas you could see the stadium just the
other side of a retail park, with four massive floodlights beaming down on the
fairly new home of Shamrock Rovers FC and it only took a few minutes to find our
way over to the entrance.
At the start of the century I was a regular visitor to
Ireland with my Dad and we took in a lot of League of Ireland games on our
travels, back then Rovers were homeless and I saw them play ‘home’ games at
Tolka Park and The Morton Athletics Stadium. After a nomadic existence around
Dublin they eventually returned to the south of the city and to a new home
ground owned by the local authority in 2009. It initially had three sides with
the fourth added more recently taking capacity up to 10,716. The stadium is
really nice with four separate seated stands, a superb playing surface and
training pitches outside, there is also still room to expand if required.
Shamrock themselves were facing one final league game on the
Friday still with a chance of winning the league if Shelbourne (managed by
Damien Duff) slipped up away at Derry City. They will also still be competing
in the Europa League despite the domestic season coming to an end, as it runs
from March to November in the Republic of Ireland.
After picking up some food from the chipper inside the
stadium we made our way up to the back of the stand behind the goal and the
view was really good. Although we had to move down a row later on as I didn’t
realise there is a row Z and a row ZZ behind it! Mikey was suitably impressed
with the ground and the food for that matter and just as the teams were warming
up Bartley joined us. We spent the entire game chatting about football in
Ireland, the UK and elsewhere.
Despite the result the previous week Ireland manager Eileen
Gleeson went in with a strong line up, including local girl Katie McCabe, the
Arsenal star getting an extra cheer every time she touched the ball.
From the kick off the game had the look of a training ground
exercise of defence V attack, with Georgia pinned back in their own half and
Ireland trying to find an opening. Within three minutes Julie-Ann Russell
scored the opener, Kyra Carusa added a second on the half hour, but not before
McCabe had missed a penalty, firing over to an audible gasp from the 8,745 in
attendance. We may have jinxed this because I took the picture below as the
kick was struck!
McCabe did get on the score sheet early in the second half
with a well struck shot that beat the keeper at the near post to make it 3-0 on
the night. There was a small pocket of Georgia fans in the main stand and fair
play to them for sticking with their team and getting behind them despite the
scoreline. Like them the team never gave up putting their bodies on the line at
times to prevent any more goals going in.
As the game ended we said goodbye to Bartley, planning to
meet up again next time either of us are in Dublin or London and headed back to
the city centre on the Luas. It had been a really enjoyable night and the game
was watched by a record attendance for a women’s game in Ireland.
Let’s hope the Girls in Green can get the job done against
Wales later this month and qualify for Euro 2025.
Col.
