Mayo girls in Ireland Women's Under 19 squad for Euro qualifiers

MAYO girls Jessica Nolan and Rachel Kearns have been included in Dave Connell's Republic of Ireland Women's Under 19 squad for their three UEFA European Championship elite phase qualifiers in Dublin this week.

After making it through the first phase of qualifying, Ireland were drawn into Group 1 where they will meet Germany today (Tuesday) followed by Azerbaijan on Thursday (April 7) and Poland on Sunday (April 10).

The three Ireland games will be hosted at Tallaght Stadium and Connell is hoping that a big crowd turns out in support of the girls as they set about securing passage through to this summer's finals in Slovakia.

He said: “I think that home advantage could help us as we will be playing in familiar surroundings, but it's up to us to make it work for us on the pitch by doing everything that we can to win each game.

“We would like to encourage people to come out to support the girls. Each of the players have done brilliantly in our games to date and they are fully focused on these next three games, which are huge for us.

“The girls have adopted a really positive attitude since the first time that we got together and I can see a lot of the same characteristics in them that was evident in the 2014 squad that went all the way to the European semi-finals.”

Nolan, from Manulla, is playing her football this year with high-flying Galway WFC in the Continental Tyres Women's National League, while Kearns, from Kilmurry, Crossmolina, has been playing with Castlebar Celtic, who have just withdrawn from the same league.

The weekday games commence at 7.30 p.m. while Sunday's game is down for a 2 p.m. kick-off.