THE matchday staff at Pairc Ui Chaoimh had to get creative once the goals started flowing on Tuesday evening.
Thankfully, the bulk of them were flying into the French net as Ireland recorded a brilliant 3-1 victory.
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It was their first outing in The Rebel County in 12 years when they lined out at Turner’s Cross.
And while the Pairc represented a far more modern, state of the art stadium to play in, it is a GAA venue at the end of the day.
That meant some impractical elements emerged such as the near 20k fans being very far from the action since there was extra space between them and the redrawn pitch.
Another one emerged once Denise O’Sullivan put the home side in front with a powerful effort from outside the box.
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As football writer Jamie Ralph noted on X: “They had to cover the scoreboard at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork with a black bag for the Ireland v France women’s football match.
“The stadium is a GAA stadium where the scores are always in the 0:00 format and the stadium has rarely hosted other sports before.”
Kathleen McNamee of Off the Ball also hailed the unconventional but functional solution that the grounds staff availed of.
She tweeted: “Officials at Páirc Uí Chaoimh are in the midst of trying to cover the points section of the scoreboard with what looks like a large black bag!”
Among the light-hearted replies, Martin wisely added: “If the humble black bag was good enough as a Halloween costume back in the day, it’s good enough to cover the scoreboard.”
Similarly, Aine commented: “Defo is black bags, saw them taking them off the roll and sticky tape. Irish solution to an Irish problem!”
The evening will primarily be remembered for Eileen Gleeson’s side bagging a welcome three points.
Admittedly Herve Renard had made 11 changes as they prioritise their preparations for the upcoming Olympics in Paris.
However, it was still a noteworthy upturn in results after a campaign that had so far only yielded mostly narrow losses but losses all the same.
O’Sullivan said of the opposition’s wholesale changes: “It’s probably an insult but it’s fine.
“They clearly underestimated us coming into this game with 11 changes so we probably shocked them a little bit.
“But we said it before the game, whoever France were going to put out there, they were going to be world-class players so we had to focus on ourselves.”
O’Sullivan hadn’t even seen the rebuilt Páirc in years but she produced a classy performance to score and assist the second for Julie-Ann Russell.
“Colin Healy said to me before the game, ‘you are going to score tonight’, and luckily I did.
“It was hopping out there. We have to come back to Cork more often. You can hear the fans the whole game, dancing, singing, everything.
“No matter where we are, the fans will follow anyway, but it is even more special in Cork for me.
“The goal was a special moment. I’m the youngest of 10 so between cousins and nephews, there was about 60 of my family members there.
“They’ve supported me so much and done a lot for me. To score and beat France was amazing.
“We barely scored once the whole campaign and we scored three tonight so that was really nice.”
