As Gavin Cooney, our man in Grenoble, tells us, the Republic of Ireland have a chance this evening to “vault higher in their ascent than any right-minded person had any reason to expect”. Bottom seeds in their World Cup qualifying group, they now have a chance of topping it and securing their place in the 2027 finals. One small matter: the team they need to beat, France, are ranked seventh in the world. “Nothing to lose and everything to gain,” is how head coach Carla Ward looks at the challenge, her team already assured of a play-off place should they fall short in their giant-killing efforts.In off-the-field footballing matters, the FAI will wait until after “the hugely significant game” in Grenoble to confirm their position on October’s Nations League home game against Israel, but they look set to ask Uefa to move it to a neutral venue.Ahead of the start of the World Cup on Thursday, Dave Hannigan looks at the state of the game in the United States where it can cost a family a minimum of $5,000 a year to sign their kid up to the local club. The country is, then, “a suitably lucrative location for Fifa to pitch its bloated World Cup tent for some supersized grifting”. In Gaelic games, our reporters pick out ‘What we learned from the GAA weekend’, and in response to Cork manager Ben O’Connor complaining that his side got a raw deal from the referee on Sunday, Malachy Clerkin sat himself down and did a foul-by-foul analysis of the frees awarded in the game. His verdict? No spoilers here.A place in the quarter-finals of the football championship awaits the winners of Sunday’s game in Omagh between Tyrone and Mayo, a repeat of the fixture a year ago when Stephen Rochford took over as interim manager of Mayo following Kevin McStay’s illness. He recalls the events around that unforgettable week. Gordon Manning, meanwhile, hears from former Dublin star Jack McCaffrey who insists Ger Brennan had every right to defend himself, by issuing a statement through his solicitor last week, following comments made about his 12-week suspension by “a particularly verbose member of the GAA hierarchy” (ie president Jarlath Burns). Incidentally, have you always dreamt of “a halfway decent GAA video game”, but discovered that such a prospect is ”the eternal El Dorado of Irish sport”? Well, Ed Power was hopeful that the recently released Gaelic Football Laochra might have cracked the code. His verdict? Still no spoilers here.In rugby, Owen Doyle gives his thoughts on the officiating in the weekend’s URC semi-finals, his chief source of irritation being Hollie Davidson’s failure to clamp down on the constant questioning of her decisions in the Leinster v Stormers game. In golf, Philip Reid updates us on Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry’s playing schedules, and in racing, it would be fair to say that Aidan O’Brien has had a rather useful six weeks - which featured six Classic victories. Next on his “rampage”, says Brian O’Connor, could be Sunday’s French Oaks, “for which one of his star fillies, Diamond Necklace, is an odds-on favourite”. TV Watch: RTÉ 2’s coverage of the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier against France this evening gets under way at 7.30, with kickoff at 8pm. Light yer candles.