Third time lucky for new Ireland boss Eileen Gleeson

It was a third time lucky for new Ireland women’s boss Eileen Gleeson after she’d missed out on the two previous vacancies.

Gleeson was unsurprisingly promoted to the main gig on Monday after her audition as interim boss went swimmingly with six straight victories in topping their UEFA Nations League.

That earned promotion to next year’s top tier of Euro 2025 qualifiers, meaning they are guaranteed at least a playoff shot at reaching Switzerland if they miss out on direct qualification by claiming a top-two berth in their four-nation pool.

Despite insisting she wasn’t interested in becoming Vera Pauw’s permanent successor, the appeal grew over the campaign and she asked to be considered once the second of three windows was completed on October 31.

Director of Football Marc Canham, speaking at today’s unveiling, was adamant their head of women’s and girls football was treated the same as other candidates.

“When Eileen took the role as interim, we were really clear that it was an interim capacity,” explained the man who is also in the early throes of headhunting a successor for men’s chief Stephen Kenny.

“At that time, we activated the process, we worked with an external agency, a data analytics company, a recruitment agency and we genuinely scoured the world in terms of that talent.

“We had around 42 people on that process at the start, which we whittled down to 12 people that went through an extensive interview process, which then moved down to seven, which then moved down to two.

“Eileen came into that process at an appropriate time and went through all the same steps as everyone did and won the role - and deservedly so.

“It wasn’t a case of trying to persuade Eileen, we were very clear at the start that Eileen wasn’t