After Thursday's history-making night for the Ireland WNT, Tuesday brought even better news.
The home win over Finland last Thursday guaranteed Ireland a place in the play-offs for next year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, but the route down under was still set to be complicated unless they could beat Slovakia.
A brilliant 1-0 win in Senec, sealed with a classy Denise O'Sullivan finish in the first half, sent Ireland straight through to the second round of the UEFA play-offs, meaning only one more tie stands between them and the World Cup.
It's a huge achievement, not only for the Ireland WNT, but for the women's game in the country. Former Ireland international Karen Duggan and football coach Lisa Fallon summed up the gravity of the team's achievement in their post-match analysis for RTÉ.
Ireland WNT: RTÉ panel sum up weight of World Cup achievement
Karen Duggan, who played for Ireland between 2013 and 2018, and currently plays for Peamount United, was vocal in her praise of the Ireland WNT in the aftermath of the win in Slovakia. Even more so, she was proud of how the current group of players had carried on the legacy of her teammates from years gone past, and pushed women's football on to new heights:
We've got good coaching structures in, there's sport scientists, they have all the facilities that they need to achieve.
We've heard players in the past who haven't had those same structures, those same opportunities, and the girls are seizing the opportunities. That's wonderful to see, and they deserve it. A lot of players who've gone before them deserve it. They're representing themselves, they're representing people who went before them, and they're building something for the future as well, which is so important.
[The journey] is not over. What went before is kind of done now - we thank all the people who did that work behind the scenes and who fought for so long - now it is the time to look forward and say "we have the players, we have the facilities" and now we have the interest, the media, the coverage has been phenomenal.
The girls have reacted really well to that, whereas the pressure might have gotten to them before. I think they're handling themselves really well and they keep talking about what this is going to do going forward in this country. That's it - we're not at the World Cup yet, but we're making steps in the right direction.
The Ireland WNT are on the verge of qualifying for a major tournament for the first time ever, and that has come thanks to the hard work of the current squad, and the greats who have gone before them.
The road to this point... @lisafallonsport and @KarenDuggan91 touch on the work of those that went before in laying the ground for this campaign
📺 Watch - https://t.co/aR8cFzAlWf
📻 Listen - https://t.co/pKRq9dYQiN
📱 Updates - https://t.co/TYLVoUyJ72 pic.twitter.com/oZcDKkcr17— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) September 6, 2022
Lisa Fallon was also part of the RTÉ panel, and gave an emotional breakdown of why the result means so much for women's football in Ireland.
You can see there's a bit of depth and resilience in the team. That comes from failure, that comes from tough nights, disappointments - but I think the greatest testimony that these players have shown players like Karen and players who did go and fight those battles before is by going out and proving that all of the battles that you guys fought were worth it.
Now, they're showing why it mattered. Getting the equal resources, getting the same opportunities, why it matters - they're showing now that this is exactly what we are capable of, and everybody else who's gone before is capable of.
Duggan went on to point out that, despite the brilliance of the WNT's achievement, much needs to be done to improve the grassroots game in Ireland.
But Tuesday is rightly a night of celebration, and Ireland will believe their journey is just beginning - as Fallon perfectly summed up:
It's progress. That's the most important thing - to make it matter. They've done that. They've done what they could do.
There's more to come for this team, and more to come for women's football in this country, and it will come - there's no doubt about it. But they've done what they could do and taken ownership of the piece they could take ownership of. They took the baton and brought it on to another level.
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