Leah Williamson, the England captain, had joked that the best way to stop her Arsenal teammate Katie McCabe would be to make sure she didn’t get the ball, but starving the Republic of Ireland of possession was exactly what the Lionesses did on the way to a 2-0 win to kickstart their Euro 2025 qualifying campaign.
It wasn’t the prettiest of performances, but that dominance yielded first-half goals from the electric Lauren James and a cool penalty from Alex Greenwood that proved enough for England.
