Carla Ward urges Ireland to resist going into 'chaos mode'

Carla Ward said her Republic of Ireland players strayed into "chaos mode" during their scrappy Nations League defeat of Turkey at Tallaght Stadium.

Ward's first game at the helm was no classic; the Turks made it a slog on a heavy pitch that hadn't recovered from Shamrock Rovers' Conference League battle with Molde on Thursday.

Kyra Carusa's first-half header settled it, and though Ward praised her team's resilience during a wobbly last ten minutes, she admitted greater composure is required if they are to adapt to the possession-based style she intends to implement.

"Calm and belief," she replied when asked what single area Ireland can improve on.

"I've said it quite a lot, they're really good footballers, a really good group of people and I think sometimes we can just relax and believe a little bit more and that's my job to get that into them.

"A player said it to me there at the end that it's always been our problem, that we always go into chaos mode, and that's okay. It's up to me and the staff now just to get them to relax a bit and believe that they are top footballers, because they are."

"There's no way we could have built in the way we wanted to on the pitch."

When asked if that nerviness might be a hangover from December's painful play-off loss to Wales, Ward said: "Maybe, yeah, that's natural right? They're human beings and that was a tough moment for them but this week the spirits have been unbelievably high and like I said they executed what we asked them to do.

"The belief bit, there is naturally going to be some hangover but seeing that over the line will be massive from a mentality point of view."

Ireland's early intentions were clearly to get the ball down and play but there's no doubt they were undermined by a