VERA PAUW insists her Republic of Ireland aces feared they would be crocked during their World Cup warm-up game against Colombia.
The Friday night duel in Brisbane, Australia was halted after 20 minutes after Denise O’Sullivan was taken to hospital with a shin injury.
Earlier today the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) revealed the midfielder was left with some bruising during the behind-closed-doors fixture.
However O’Sullivan had suffered no fracture following an X-Ray and CT scan
The North Carolina Courage ace is set to work with medical staff in an effort to swiftly return to action ahead of her team’s World Cup tournament debut.
Of the game deemed as “overly physical” by referees, Pauw, 60, told the Off the Ball podcast: “After a few minutes it just started up in a way that it had almost no turnaround.
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“There was first a huge challenge on Ruesha [Littlejohn] with a lot of emotions around that of course because that was already a challenge out of the laws of the game.
“We do not fear any physical contact. We are ourselves a team, that within the rules of the game, we are a very tough-playing team.
“We always challenge within the rules of the game. This (the challenge on Denise) was out of the rules of the game.
“Within two minutes there was a challenge on Denise.
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“It was a build-up of ‘this is going wrong, this is going really wrong’.
“She [O’Sullivan] was in awful pain of course, potentially a very serious injury, she was on the ground.
“I stayed calm. I went calmly to the bench of the opponent and I asked the coach ‘I need your help.
“We all want to go to the World Cup, how do we calm this down?’
“He only said one sentence: “it’s both sides”, but we did not make any fouls. He went back [to the bench] and did not take any responsibility.
“Then their team manager came and I said: ‘We all want to go to the World Cup, can you help me to calm things down?’
“She said ‘it’s not intentional’. I got no help from them.
“The bench of Colombia was very calm, they did not instigate things, I want to highlight that.
‘It was developing on the pitch, the players of course were upset.
“So I decided to, for the first time in my life, go to the medical team and to Denise and they confirmed it was potentially a very serious injury.
“The players, [for] the first time since I am coaching them, they feared for their bodies.
‘I took them away, calmed everybody down.
“Fortunately my technical director had just arrived. We discussed it.
“He took charge of it with the FAI, the CEO, and his decision was in-line with what I felt and what the players felt.”
Pauw’s side will face contest co-hosts Australia in a highly-anticipated Group B clash on the World Cup’s opening day on July 20.
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The game, which kicks off at 10:00am UK time is one of two openers for the tournament.
Co-hosts New Zealand facing Norway two hours earlier on Thursday.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
