2023 Women's World Cup: How Ireland Caged Nigeria - O'Sullivan

2023 Women's World Cup: How Ireland Caged Nigeria - O'Sullivan

Sampson Adedeji

The attacking midfielder of the Republic of Ireland Dennis O'Sullivan has revealed how they were able to hold the Super Falcons of Nigeria to a respectable draw, BSNSports.com.ng reports.

Despite crashing out of the competition after losing the first two games against Australia and Canada, the Irish secured a well-deserved goalless draw against Nigerian.

"The spaces… Nigeria is very powerful, fast, turning quick and they destroyed Australia with their pace. 

"So we stopped the pace and the spaces that was creating were in a position where, in the pocket, Sinead Farrelly and Denise are the best players.

“And that is why we played that, with Lily [Agg] behind. She had to, with Ruesha [Littlejohn] open spaces for Sinead and Denise and the wingers coming over, and it worked well. 

"Many other teams close those spaces and if you have Denise out there, then she is just pushed to the side, as you have seen in an earlier game, Sweden, and we don’t get anything out of her. 

"So she is in this system where there are spaces, and today, what we expected from Nigeria, we needed her there.

"Disappointed we didn’t come away with a win. Honestly, I thought we could have got the win tonight. But I thought the performance was a lot better.

 "We were a lot more composed on the ball in midfield especially, we sprayed the ball around. It’s bittersweet.

 "We wanted to come away with the win but we got our first point on the board, so it is kind of disappointing at the same time", she explained.