'It's crazy' - Sinead Farrelly trying to process World Cup dream

Republic of Ireland midfielder Sinead Farrelly admits she's still trying to process the enormity of the World Cup as the clock ticks down to the big kick-off in Sydney.

Farrelly earned her second cap - and first on Irish soil - against France on Thursday night.

She came into the fold in April impressing in the 2-0 defeat to the USA. Barring injury, she’s guaranteed to start in the group opener against Australia.

And yet the 33-year-old can’t quite take it all in, with that massive clash with the Aussies set to take place at a sold-out Accor Stadium, which holds over 80,000 fans.

"No!" she replied when asked if it was all starting to feel real. "When it is over I'll be like, 'oh that happened'. It is hard not to feel that it is real when you step out for that first game and there's 82,000 people there. It still feels a little bit surreal. It almost feels a bit of a blur.

"It is crazy. 30,000 is the most I've maybe played in front of before. That is a pretty big difference. When you are on the field you’re kind of present with what is going on but who knows what it is going to feel like?"

Ireland’s farewell game against the French at Tallaght Stadium didn’t exactly go to plan, the excellent visitors sweeping to a 3-0 win.

Still, there were positive to take from a good first half, during which Ireland more than matched France before they were sucker-punched by two goals in stoppage time.

"We aren't as happy with the result as we'd like to be obviously but I think that we need to learn from our mistakes. There was a lot of positives we can take out of it," she added.

"I think the first 42 minutes or whatever it was, we really held them… and we had a goal [from Kyra Carusa] that I heard was onside actually. We did so well defensively