Quinn and De Burca confident in Ireland's chances

The Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team will start their UEFA EURO 2017 campaign at home to Finland after being drawn in Group 2.

Ireland went into the draw as third seeds but is confident in their abilities ahead of kicking off the campaign. The girls in green are on a quest to qualify for their first senior competition and will have to fight off competition against the groups first seeds Spain who will be competing in this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, second seeds Finland, fourth seeds Portugal and fifth seeds FYR Montenegro.

Speaking to ExtraTime.ie after the draw was made, vice-captain Louise Quinn was in confident mood.  

“I think overall we are very happy with the draw. I have full confidence we can take points from all of those teams but we will not under estimate any of the other teams in the group. It’s a tough group but we know this is one of our best chances to qualify for a EURO’s and we will do everything in our power to make that happen.”

Ireland recently played Spain on April 8th in a friendly and was unlucky to suffer a narrow 1-0 loss, as Quinn herself had a goal disallowed seven minutes from the end. The squad have high hopes going into this qualifying campaign knowing they have the potential to beat the top seeds and Republic of Ireland defender Méabh De Búrca, speaking to ExtraTime.ie, was happy to avoid some of the top seeds.   

“If we were given that group before the draw today, I think we would have grabbed it with both hands. Avoiding France and Germany was important. Portugal, however as fourth seeds will be difficult opponents. Overall I feel that it is a group we are more than capable of qualifying from.”

Over the past three years Ireland has played Spain, Finland and Portugal but the game against Montenegro will be the first meeting of the sides. They also lost 1-0 to Finland when the sides last met at the 2013 Cyprus Cup and were beaten 2-1 by Portugal at the Algarve Cup in 2012.

Ireland manager Sue Ronan was delighted to have avoided the likes of Germany and France but believes it is still going to be a tough challenge for her side to make the top two in the group.

Ronan said, “I think this is a very competitive group with teams capable of taking points of each other. Spain are a very good team who are heading to the World Cup on the back of a qualifying campaign where they won nine games and drew the other. Finland qualified for EURO 2013 while Portugal were the best team in Pot 4 and nobody wanted them because they have the potential to take points off sides. Even Montenegro will be difficult as they led twice against Turkey in the last campaign before losing to an own goal. It’s going to be tough to finish in the top two and we certainly won’t be underestimating anybody.”  

Ireland first competitive game of the qualifiers is on September 21^st at home before travelling to Portugal in October and then hosting top seeds Spain at home on November 26^th.

The squad begin 2016 with an away double header in April against Montenegro and Spain followed by the return game away to Finland in June. Ireland will then finish the campaign with two home games against Montenegro in June and Portugal in September.

The full listing of the UEFA Euro 2017 campaign fixtures are as follows:

21-09-15 v Finland (h)

27-10-15 v Portugal (a)

26-11-15 v Spain (h)

07-04-16 v Montenegro (a)

12-04-16 v Spain (a)

03-06-16 v Finland (a)

07-06-16 v Montenegro (h)

20-09-16 v Portugal (h)

The group winners and the six best runners-up will join the hosts, the Netherlands, in the final tournament. The other two runners-up will play off in October 2016 for the remaining berth in the expanded 16-team finals to be held the following summer.

Ahead of the campaign, the girls in green have one final friendly on Sunday, May 10^th. The squad will travel to the San Jose, California to face the United States who is FIFA ranked number two and World Cup hopefuls. The game will be broadcast live on Setanta Ireland at 7:30pm Irish time. Follow ExtraTime.ie for all the build up and updates.