Women's Euro 2022 valuable homework for Ireland's Finnish exam - Louise Quinn

When the next World Cup kicks off on 20 July 2023, Ireland will be hoping to be there for the very first time.

Qualification results so far have given Vera Pauw's side a real chance of making it to the play-offs, especially after the 9-0 win in Georgia on Monday.

But before the campaign resumes with the crucial two last games against Finland and Slovakia in September, there will be a watching brief in July as Women's Euro 2022 takes centre stage.

All 31 matches of the tournament will be live on RTÉ television and the RTÉ Player from Wednesday, 6 July and Ireland defender Louise Quinn will be among the cast of pundits.

One would imagine that for Quinn and co, the analysis of the 16 teams will be most intense when it comes to Finland who are in what is deemed to be the Group of Death alongside Germany, Spain and Denmark and are a team which Ireland earned a famous 2-1 win against in Helsinki last October.

"It's such an exciting group of teams to be able to watch but we'll definitely be doing our bit of homework," Quinn told the RTÉ Soccer Podcast in the wake of the launch of RTÉ's tournament coverage.

"We all love playing the game but we also all love watching it and then there's especially some of us who love the coaching and analysing part of it as well so you're going to look that little bit deeper into how they're playing.

"But I'm definitely going to be doing my homework on the Finns and obviously potentially we can do a job there."

Based on the FIFA rankings, Ireland are the 16th best team from the currently active UEFA nations which is the exact number of teams which qualify for the European Championships.

Draws against Sweden in April and the aforementioned win in Finland during the World Cup campaign are somewhat