Ireland v Wales: Euro dreams of Girls in Green come to an end in ...
Gleeson rues missed chances and remains tight-lipped about her future as Ireland manager
“You know what it means to the players. We’re here representing Ireland, we wanted to do the country proud and get to Euro 2025 and we haven’t, so it’s devastating.
“Overall in the game we dominated, I think 17 shots to six. We had chances in the first half that we should have done a lot better with quality wise. It’s goals that win games and that’s what happened tonight.
“It’s a peno and one break from a long kick where we were probably a little bit too high on one side and we should do better in those moments. If you take your chances then you come away with a different result.
“I didn’t think we were lucky [that Katie McCabe wasn’t sent off in the first half]. I thought we were trying to stay composed on the pitch and keep our structure. I don’t think we lost our structure, I think it got a bit feisty and there was a lot of provocation from the Welsh bench and their coaching staff.
“We had got 11 and we came off at half-time regretting the chances we hadn’t scored and that was the talking point – more quality there.
“We had 17 shots, I don’t care what [Wales manager] Rhian [Wilkinson] had to say – now or then. I thought we were in control in the first half, trying to keep composure and the emotions. We played OK, we didn’t want to play through the centre then as that’s where they were locking out. So then we were looking to play around and we were getting joy with Denise [O’Sullivan] popping out and Julie [Ann Russell] running. We were good on the back press and we had some chances that we should have done better with.
“It’s a blow but we have to go again and look forward to the next big campaign, the World Cup. Tonight is not really the chat about that. Obviously there’s a lot of devastating, disappointment and hurt. We have to build again and go again.
“It [her future as Ireland manager] is not something I’m going to talk about tonight. We’re here as a team, we lost as a team and we’re going to support ourselves through as a team.”
