England’s World Cup is, at last, alive and they may well need the confidence boost this late victory gave them. Danny Kerry’s side required only a draw to finish second in Group B; they went one better, Giselle Ansley’s 53rd-minute shot from a penalty corner earning a deserved first win of the tournament. But bigger tests than this will follow.
On Tuesday night they face an unwelcome playoff for the quarter-finals against a South Korea side who, barring disaster, should be beaten; the sting in the tail is that this would bring a last-eight tie against the favourites, the Netherlands, who scored 26 times to England’s three in the group stage. It will require a far more clinical performance than anything they have produced so far if they are to oust the world’s No 1-ranked team.
Kerry said there had never been a chance he would try to manipulate the group’s labyrinthine permutations so that England finished third and avoided that pathway to the Netherlands. Had they pulled off a high-wire act and done so, a rematch with Ireland – by far the softer option on this evidence – would have been in their sights.
But with a two-goal defeat potentially eliminating England the only option was to go out and make sure. The question had come up, he said, as they mulled over potential scenarios before the tournament, and it was eye-opening to hear that not everyone in the camp shared his view at the time.
“Some athletes discussed: ‘Oh, well surely we could contrive ...’,” he said. “They’re young players, inexperienced players, and perhaps get carried away with some of the stuff that happened in the football World Cup. If you put yourself in my shoes, you’re 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 the goal? Am I really going to tell us to let the opposition in?” It was clear enough from the start that Kerry had ordered nothing of the sort. Against an Ireland side who had already, to some surprise, won the group they controlled possession and came close twice through the captain, Alex Danson. The second time, Danson’s shot beat Grace O’Flanagan but was blocked on the line by the defender Elena Tice. That denied her a goal that would have made her the country’s all-time record scorer and meant England, their first-half threat subsiding as the wind and rain died down in east London, went in at half-time looking nervous.
Sitting at the back of the stand, Kerry had barked instructions to his players with increased urgency as the minutes ticked by. Whatever he said at the interval brought a change in tempo. England flew out of the traps and might have scored when Sarah Haycroft, breaking up an ill-advised attempt from Ireland to build from the back, was denied by the impressive O’Flanagan.
Moments of genuine menace from Ireland had been few but they served notice of their threat when Megan Frazer, hitherto quiet, made space on the right of the area before blazing a cross-shot wide. Three penalty corners quickly followed, the last in the series drawing a sharp save from Maddie Hinch. At the other end Hannah Martin’s deflected shot gave rise to a prolonged, often ragged spell of Ireland defending and offered hope of a grandstand finale.
The pressure during the final quarter was incessant but England, wasting a near-endless stream of penalty corners, were frustrated time and again. When, from their 14th, Ansley finally fired home via a deflection off Hannah Matthews the relief was widespread.
“Because everyone’s making a big deal about it the girls are getting edgy but, if we were sitting here saying, ‘You’re not getting any corners and you’re not dominating the game,’ then I would be concerned,” Kerry said. “I have to keep the bigger picture in mind. Were we the better team in the matches we’ve played? Yep. Do we need to get better at corners? Yep.. I’m pretty happy with the way we’re playing. We just need to commit to the corners.”
It has been a much slower-burning week than Kerry and England had expected but the really hard work is only just beginning.
