Much-changed Ireland miss out on Pinatar Cup final spot

Republic of Ireland 0-1 Russia

An early goal proved to be the difference as a much-changed Republic of Ireland side lost 1-0 to Russia in the Pinatar Cup in La Manga on Saturday.

Vera Pauw always intended to use this fixture to give game-time to several players. Included amongst those changes were debuts given to goalkeeper Megan Walsh, defender Chloe Mustaki and forward Abbie Larkin.

The rotation of players broke Katie McCabe's run of 42 consecutive starts which dates back to September 2016, while Diane Caldwell wore the captain's armband for the first time at senior level.

Mustaki became the 11th player from the Ireland Women's U19 squad that reached the semi-finals of the 2014 UEFA European Championships to earn a senior cap.

Russia made a fast start to the game with Walsh having to be on full alert when saving well inside the opening minutes but she could not keep out a close-range strike from Elizaveta Lazareva.

After good attacking play, Russia squared the ball to Nelli Korovkina to unload a shot and even though Walsh was equal to that, Lazareva was there to covert from the rebound.

Ireland responded by playing some nice football and on 25 minutes it almost came together with Ellen Molloy dinking past three players to feed the ball to Larkin to shoot, but her effort was straight at the opposition goalkeeper.

Two minutes later, a breakaway saw Larkin slide a pass to Leanne Kiernan, who skipped inside her marker to fire a shot just over the crossbar. It felt like Ireland were getting closer to scoring with Amber Barrett also shooting too high soon afterwards.

Just before the interval, Kiernan took the responsibility on her own shoulders by attempting a long-range drive into the net but goalkeeper Julia Grichenko pushed it