Ruesha Littlejohn happy to ride her luck in Euro play-off

Republic of Ireland goalscorer Ruesha Littlejohn was happy to accept a big slice of luck that helped her side to a 1-1 draw with Wales in the first leg of their Euro 2025 play-off in Cardiff.

Lily Woodham – who had scored in Wales' 2-0 friendly victory in Dublin nine months ago – opened the scoring with a well taken strike after 20 minutes after a defensive mix-up in the Irish defence.

However Ireland drew level 15 minutes later when Littlejohn’s hopeful long range effort bounced back off the crossbar and hit the back of goalkeeper Olivia Clark’s head before dropping into the net.

While it went down as an own-goal, Littlejohn was pleased to have played her part in the equaliser and her thoughts are now turning to Tuesday’s crucial second-leg clash at Aviva Stadium.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport, she said: "I saw it coming out to me and thought 'just hit it’ and it was a bit of a lucky one, but you need a bit of luck in these games, and we'll take that and onto the second leg now.

"I'd say it wasn't the best game for the fan watching on telly. Not a lot of football being played, but we knew it was going to be like that.

"We’ll go back to Ireland, back to the Aviva and hopefully we can play a bit better football and take control of the match."

Littlejohn is one of the elder stateswomen of the Ireland squad and crucial to their hopes of getting to the European Championships next summer.

She was named the player of the match after an assured performance in midfield, where she always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

Ireland will be counting on Littlejohn’s experience next week and for her part, she’s just focused on getting to that match in good shape.

"I'll go and recover now. I'm 34, 35 in summer. So less is more for me.

"I