Ronan: Ireland will aim to quiet Welsh crowd early on
When you look at the rankings, Wales are 24th in the world and we're 29th. It has been nip and tuck between us over the years in games and I think we have the upperhand in competitive matches. They did beat us in a friendly in Dublin earlier this year 2-0, so all told there is not a huge amount, player for player, between us.
However, I think we have a few world-class players that can unlock the Welsh defence in Katie McCabe and Denise O'Sullivan and I would be looking to them to have a big game tonight and again on Tuesday. Having said that, Wales have a big player in Jess Fishlock and when she's in the squad they generally win games, so we need to take care of her.
You will want to keep it tight early on and take the sting out of the Welsh team and the crowd. It's going to be a passionate crowd; I was watching on YouTube their home game against Slovakia (semi-final play-off), the second leg, and the crowd were really passionate, singing the anthem.
You will want to take the sting out of that and not get caught up with the occasion early on. But it is important to start well, you want to get into the game early, take the game to them, but also keep it tight.
We're playing really well as a team.
I know we had a tough group in the Euros but we won games towards the end, beat France at home, but we got better as the campaign went on. The experience from playing those top teams will certainly stand to us and you could see we starting to play better. I think we'll get a good result tonight.
Sue Ronan was speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland
Watch Wales v Republic of Ireland in the Euro 2025 play-offs on Friday from 6.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live commentary on 2fm's Game On
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