Australia Women v Ireland Women

Australia Women vs Ireland Women

Co-hosts, Australia, will begin their World Cup campaign at Stadium Australia in Sydney against Republic of Ireland in this opening game of Group B with the hosts expected to register a comfortable victory in front of a bumper partisan crowd.

Australia will head into this group-opener in confident mood as the home side have captured nine wins in their last 10 matches in all competitions which includes impressive wins against Denmark 3-1 away from home and a 2-0 win at England along with FFA Cup of Nations victories collected against Czech Republic, Spain and Jamaica respectively.

Australia will therefore be focused and confident that they can build upon this impressive and important winning momentum at Stadium Australia especially as the hosts have won seven of their last eight games on home soil as well, giving The Matildas plenty of reasons to be upbeat about their chances on Thursday night.

In addition, Australia will be determined to avenge a previous 3-2 defeat away from home at Republic of Ireland in an international friendly back in September 2021, this time around.

Onto Republic of Ireland and they had to navigate a tricky World Cup qualifier play-off against Scotland in the European section in order to secure a place in this upcoming World Cup finals held in Australia and New Zealand, which they duly did as the Irish ran out narrow 1-0 winners at Hampden Park.

The Irish then went on to record a comprehensive 4-0 victory over Morocco in a subsequent international friendly but results since then have been fairly disappointing for Vera Pauw's side as they have managed to capture just one further win in their last five matches overall.

That singular success came in the form of a 3-2 home win against Zambia but defeats to USA in 2-0 and 1-0 losses along with a heavy 3-0 loss on home soil to France will have done very little to boost morale ahead of this upcoming World Cup campaign even though the margin of defeats to the mighty USA were just by two and one goals respectively.

Australia W v Rep Ireland W Verdict

Australia Women hold a FIFA ranking of 10th in the world and along with Canada, they are expected to progress through the group stage and not only into the knockout rounds but go deep into the tournament as well.

Republic of Ireland could cause an upset during the group stage but the chances of them doing so in front of a vociferous home crowd on Friday night against The Matildas looks highly unlikely, especially if Aussie striker, Sam Kerr, is allowed any freedom in the final third of the pitch.

Therefore, our main bet will be Australia win & Both Teams To Score No @ 1.90

Other side bets worth considering:

Australia win & Under 2.5 goals @ 3.20

Correct score: Australia W 2-0 @ 6.00