Ansley winner lifts England for play-off
It has taken them eight days, and nearly three matches, but England can finally say they have arrived at their home World Cup.
They had to work for this first victory of the tournament, against a resolute Ireland side, but work they did, before a late strike from Giselle Ansley allowed another sell-out crowd to explode in celebration.
Ansley’s goal provided a feelgood finish to a week that had been defined by disappointing draws against India and the United States. It was not enough for England to top their pool – Ireland had already guaranteed first place – but it was certainly a timely boost ahead of the knockout stages.
England must now win a play-off match against South Korea if they are to reach the quarter-finals, while Ireland have time to rest and prepare for the last eight.
An extra game was clearly not the route that England were expecting to take here, but they will at least be happy to have experienced the winning feeling before the stress levels increase once again.
Ansley’s goal came from a penalty corner, although there will again be concern at how wasteful England were when these opportunities arose. The winner stemmed from their 14th penalty corner, and only a couple of the previous efforts had posed even a minimal threat.
“We are not going to shy away from the fact that we had plenty of chances,” Ansley said. “We have to keep believing, and we do believe we can pull them off.”
The complicated “cross-over” format of the tournament had created an added layer of intrigue for this rain-drenched encounter. Danny Kerry’s England side came into it knowing that either a victory or a draw would send them through, but also that second place now provides them with a more complex route to the latter stages.
If they get past Korea, England will face Holland in the quarter-finals. The mighty Dutch scored 14 goals in their first two games – compared to England’s two – and stuck 12 more past Italy in a 12-1 win yesterday, the biggest score at a World Cup. Third place in the pool would therefore have provided an easier route to the semi-final.
Kerry admitted that some of the younger players had been tempted by a third-place finish. He, however, was having none of it.
“They are young players, inexperienced players, and perhaps they got carried away with some of the stuff that happened at the football World Cup,” Kerry said.
“If you put yourself in my shoes, you are the coach of the national team playing in a home World Cup, in front of 10,000 people. Am I really going to tell the team to stop shooting at goal?”
Captain Alex Danson looked the most likely to take those shots. She became England’s joint-highest scorer with a stunning goal against the US on her 200th appearance for her country in midweek, and threatened to make that record her own after another twisting run. Her shot was too good for Ayeisha Mcferran, the Ireland goalkeeper, but Elena Tice blocked it on the line.
The move at least earned the first of a series of early penalty corners for England, who were so wasteful from these positions in their opening two games. There was more creativity with the second but Su- sannah Townsend was unable to divert the ball home.
English dominance continued into the second quarter but Ireland proved defensively determined once again, as they had in their shock victories over India and the US. It was only in the third quarter that the game began to open up. Megan Frazer lashed a shot wide for the Irish, before England were able to successfully defend a hattrick of penalty corners.
A little spooked by the Irish adventure, England asserted themselves once more. No fewer than five penalty corners came and went over the next 10 minutes, while Danson went close with a diving effort and Sarah Haycroft caused chaos by winning the ball back just a few yards from the Ireland goal.
England kept coming. With only a few minutes remaining, and at the 14th time of asking, a penalty corner finally ended with a goal as Ansley’s strike deflected in off Ireland’s Hannah Matthews.
“It was a dominant performance,” Kerry said. “I felt we would score. I just felt with the sheer wave of pressure, at some point it would go in. I was sitting there thinking that, by the law of averages, it would go in. Do we need to get better at corners? Yep. But I am pretty happy with the way we are playing.”