It's a funny old game, just ask the Irish

Missing crates of food, a diet of Snickers and Ballygowan, rusty baths, a Belarussian wedding and a 1-0 victory. It was a funny old start to the Irish women's soccer team's World Cup Qualifying campaign in Belarus last month, an eventful first step on a journey they hope will take them to America for the 1999 World Cup. Victory against Poland at Tolka Park tomorrow afternoon will put them top of their group and keep that World Cup dream very much alive.

Drawn in group six with Poland, Belarus and Wales the Republic must finish top and then win a playoff against another European group winner before they can secure their place in the third women's World Cup. So far all their rivals have dropped points, making their winning start to the campaign in Belarus all the more significant. And it was a victory secured under "difficult" circumstances, as captain Yvonne Lyons explains.

"We flew into Frankfurt on the Friday, stayed there that night, flew to Minsk on the Saturday and then had a three hour coach journey to Mogliev. It was terrible, we couldn't believe the poverty there. The hotel we stayed in was something else, filthy dirty, run down, nobody would eat anything and all our food had gone missing.

"We brought these big huge containers of food but they never arrived in Mogliev - at that stage we were all starving with the hunger. We wouldn't eat anything in the hotel because we had been warned about it being so close to Chernobyl and were advised not to eat certain things. We had a box of Snickers and a supply of Ballygowan between 23 of us, so we survived on that for the 24 hours we were in Mogliev. I remember thinking at the time no wonder Wales were hammered by Belarus because they stayed in our hotel for three or four nights.

"We went training on the Saturday night but no one would get into the baths when we got back - they had big holes in the side of them and they were covered in rust, so we were all going around smelly.

"At that stage we were starving so we decided to try the restaurant but when we went down we found ourselves in the middle of a wedding party. There was a band playing, blaring this Russian music, we sat in the middle of all of this. Can you imagine, 23 footballers in the middle of this wedding? I don't know who was more amused, us or them. One of the girls was whipped up by this fella to dance. Then they cooked us chips and chicken, but we just ate a few of the chips. The young kids were afraid of their lives to eat anything."

And so the team played their first ever World Cup qualifying match on empty stomachs. It showed in the first 45 minutes, when Belarus laid siege to their goal. "It was the fastest game I've ever played in my life," says Lyons. "I played at centre half and I ran non stop; they won everything in midfield in the first half so our defence was constantly under pressure. I thought I'd never catch my breath, I thought I was going to have a heart attack there and then on the field."

After surviving the first half siege St Patrick's Athletic's, Waterfordborn midfielder Rosie Power celebrated her 21st birthday by scoring the game's only goal 10 minutes into the second half. When they returned to Frankfurt that night their crate of food was waiting for them at the hotel. They celebrated their priceless victory by "piling in to one room and just stuffing ourselves".

Irish manager Mick Cooke, who played League of Ireland football for 15 years (with St Patrick's Athletic, Drogheda, Shamrock Rovers and Galway United) and who has been in charge of the team since 1992, was delighted with the team's success in Belarus and is confident they can make it two wins out of two against Poland. "Going in to the Eastern Block to play women's football was a journey into unknown for us. As it turned out Belarus were very good, on the day they were probably better than we were to be honest. We didn't play all that well and our defence certainly kept us in the game. Poland will be a bit of an unknown quantity for us too but I always worry more about ourselves - if we can get it right on the day I wouldn't fear anybody."

Cooke has named a 16-player squad for the match that blends the experience of goalkeeper Sue Hayden, the longest serving member of the team with 41 caps, the newly crowned player of the year Bernie Reilly, Olivia O'Toole (twice winner of the Player of the Year award) and captain Yvonne Lyons, the Benfica (Waterford) player who made her debut back in 1984, with a host of young players whose emergence onto the international scene has coincided with the boom in the women's game in Ireland. "It's nice to have 25 players, and more, competing for the 16 places in the squad: there was a time I'd name 12 and then have to ring up another four to ask them to play," says Cooke. "We have players now, in youth and senior squads, from Kerry, Donegal, Waterford, Cork, Athlone and Boyle, Co Roscommon: a couple of years ago they really only came from Dublin so the game is taking off all over the country. And there's no doubt, if we can qualify for the World Cup it would go through the roof."

Cook has two injury worries ahead of the match - Rosie Power (cartilage problem) and Olivia O'Toole (hamstring) will need late fitness tests before he names his team.