SLOW DEATH OF THE IRISH GAME

From 1988 onwards, Ireland have enjoyed about a two decade-long love affair with the beautiful game. That relationship is disintegrating and it may even already be dead.

 D. Ray Morton, 31st August 2015.

 

The decline of the Irish twenty-something



For the past four years, this writer used to play six-a-side football on Monday nights. The games were played in a new facility, a lovely artificial grass surface in a suburb of Cork City. As a weekly activity, the games brought a lot of fun and were a nice way to get through the gloomy fog of a Monday evening. After a long run of games, the weekly match is slowly unravelling to nothing, the player numbers simply no longer available. Whether off to Dublin, London, Toronto or Sydney, the young people have left. Some frightening statistics illustrate this with a massive exodus of twenty-somethings leaving the country in their droves. Adding to this, the teenagers are not interested in soccer any more and the lads in their 30s and 40s don't take good enough care of themselves to run around for an hour a week. A small tale of tragedy but an indicator of a bigger picture.

The Republic of Ireland went mad for football from 1988 onwards. They qualified for their first major tournament that year and trips to the World Cup in 1990 and 1994 added to the hysteria. Irish players were of a high level. We had a world-class centre-back in Paul McGrath and midfielders as talented as Ronnie Whelan and Roy Keane. The likes of Damien Duff and Robbie Keane followed. Unfortunately the supply line has dried up. If James McCarthy is the future, that is one worrying future.

Once upon a time, Ireland used to produce players capable of winning the PFA Player of the Year award. Those days are over

 

Ireland play Gibraltar in a Euro 2016 qualifier this Friday in a game no-one really cares about. Then they play at home, after a big GAA weekend, Monday against Georgia. The attendance could be embarrassingly low. The League of Ireland is hanging in tatters, arguably no better than it was in the '90s as some of Europe's other minor leagues develop through sensible investment and advancing through the earlier rounds of UEFA's club competitions. Ireland remains in a quagmire.

Rugby, with the success of the Irish national team, has become the sport of the common man now. This was not always the case as rugby is something of a specialist sport in its own right. It is not as if the average man is fifteen stone of bodybuilt muscle. The sport of the people is a sport played by giants. Not a sport where size, see Lionel Messi, necessarily matters. Despite the fact that thousands still watch the Premier League and the Champions League, Ireland are on the periphery feeling the effects of the more globalised English game that once allowed many Irish, Welsh and Scots to dig out successful careers.

The end is nigh for football in Ireland and it may take many, many years or something extremely radical to change that. Over to you, John Delaney.

O'NEILL'S RETURN TO LEICESTER A GODSEND FOR THE FAI

Rumours are emerging this afternoon that the Football Association of Ireland are happy to allow Martin O'Neill to vacate the Irish manager role to return to Premier League management with his old club Leicester City. Perhaps this is the best arrangement for both parties after an uninspired two years in charge at the Aviva Stadium.

D. Ray Morton, 10th July 2015.

Martin O'Neill looks likely to step down from the Ireland job after only joining in 2013

This afternoon, The Guardian are reporting that a bookmaker has halted bets on Martin O'Neill becoming Leicester City's new manager after the sacking of Nigel Pearson over a week ago. This means that he will vacate the Irish manager job likely leaving Roy Keane in charge of their failing European Championship qualification campaign.

Since O'Neill took over in 2013, his tenure in charge has seemed utterly uninspired. Irish fans expected O'Neill's tactics to be conservative but they felt he would bring an air of authority to the team after the shambles of Giovanni Trapatonni's last World Cup qualifying campaign. We got the conservative tactics part but we never got the inspiration. O'Neill completely failed to get anything positive out of his willing, albeit limited, squad. It all felt a bit like Paul Lambert at Aston Villa. Decent manager, terrible situation.

Failing to convince Jack Grealish to play for Ireland aside, O'Neill persisted with a deeply negative 4-5-1 system as Scotland, our main rivals in qualification, went with attacking football which ultimately outdid us over two close fixtures. Currently Wales are ranked 10th in the FIFA world rankings. Ireland are not even in the top fifty. This would have been unthinkable some years back but we really have been overtaken. We live in an era where the small teams of Europe are emerging, yet Ireland stays stuck in the mud. This is across the board too. Last night, Cork City FC were knocked out of the Europa League by an Icelandic (Iceland themselves looking a good shout for Euro 2016 qualification) team. The League of Ireland has never been considered hugely competitive but being outdone by minnows like KR Reykjavik was an unwelcome extra kick in the teeth.

Back to Ireland and O'Neill though. The current campaign, let us face facts, is done. Keano will preside over a series of dead fixtures but is unlikely to stay on as a permanent manager. The FAI will have a lot of time to come up with the new guy. They have to get this right or else Ireland will continue to sink. We will be 4th seeds in the draw for the World Cup qualifiers after the Euros. This is a pretty terrifying prospect. Thinking hat on, John Delaney.

IRISH LOSE TO SERBIA WITH SOME POSITIVES TO TAKE FROM IT

IRISH LOSE TO SERBIA WITH SOME POSITIVES TO TAKE FROM IT

D. Ray Morton, 6th March 2014.

The Republic of Ireland fell to a 2-1 home defeat to Serbia in last night's friendly at the Aviva to signify to Martin O'Neill that the honeymoon is over and business starts in earnest from here on in. It was an opportunity to test new players against a capable young side well accustomed to playing neat, possession football.

Opting to set Ireland up in a 4-4-1-1 formation with Wes Hoolahan playing in behind Shane Long, things started positively for the boys in green. Within two minutes, the home side had the ball in the back of the net only for it to be ruled offside. James McClean worked the ball down the left, crossed to Glenn Whelan who volleyed in the direction of Hoolahan who was standing in an offside position. It looked as if Hoolahan had spoiled a perfectly good goal for Whelan although the replay suggested that Hoolahan's slight touch guided it goalwards.

Six minutes later however, Ireland managed to score a legitimate goal. Branislav Ivanovic, Serbia's biggest name player, hesitated at the back allowing Shane Long to get one-on-one with the goalkeeper. His tidy left-foot chip made it 1-0 to Ireland and things were looking very good.

The half wore on and Serbia began to grow into it after their relaxed start. They started to get hold of the ball and created more chances than the Irish. Despite Serbia's growing confidence, they still looked vulnerable to the counter attack. On 30 minutes, Hoolahan managed to play through Long, who had actually been well offside, but the new Hull City signing couldn't finish even after a second bite at the cherry following Vladimir Stojkovic's save from his first effort.

Seamas Coleman had a good first half down the right, bombing forward at any given chance and using his pace well. Marc Wilson looked shaky at centre half however and the Serbians piled on the pressure leading up to the break. Dusan Tadic tested David Forde with a wonderful effort on 40 minutes. Hoolahan picked up a yellow card just on the stroke of half-time for a Paul Scholes-esque challenge which demonstrated that tackling back isn't really part of his game. A central midfield player he is not. He is far better suited to the No. 10 role.

It didn't take long for Serbia to find the net in the second half and it came via an own goal. They had worked the ball into the Irish penalty area with some intricate passes to which James McCarthy had been drawn to. He found himself in the unfortunate position of redirecting a low cross into his own net past the on-rushing Forde. It was no less than Serbia deserved as they had put Ireland firmly on the back foot from the restart.

In the 53rd minute, Long found himself played through on goal yet again after another one of Hoolahan's magnificent slide rule passes. His finish was scatterbrained though, attempting another lob like the one he had succeeded with in the first half but this time getting it all wrong and aiming well wide.

On the hour mark, Serbia finally took the lead after on-going spells of attacking possession and some clever movement. Coleman, in an otherwise decent performance, lost possession on the right as a result of some tenacious pressing. Filip Djordjevic managed to get the final touch on a move that had ripped Ireland wide open exposing concerning defensive frailties.

At this point, the game had been interfered with by both sides introducing several substitutions which is typical of international friendlies. Ireland's only real other chance of note came late on when Jonathan Walters appeared to be through on goal with only three minutes left on the clock. Whether the sub striker hadn't warmed up properly or simply didn't have the pace, we don't know, but he looked very sluggish indeed.

So 2-1 it ended and it marked Martin O'Neill's first defeat as Ireland manager. Considering the experimental line-up fielded, he won't take too many negatives from the game but will understand that there's lots of work ahead in terms of changing this side from a defensive unit to a team that can be proactive and dictate games. Serbia were difficult opposition and made use of the ball very well. Ireland need to take a page out of their book in that regard but the performances of the likes of Wes Hoolahan and Seamus Coleman were quite positive for the most part.

Player Ratings

Ireland

Forde 6.5; Coleman 7, Keogh 6, Wilson 5.5, Ward 6; McGeady 6.5, McCarthy 6, Whelan 6.5, McClean 6.5; Hoolahan 7.5, Long 7. Subs: Clark 5.5, Pilkington 5.5, Meyler 5.5, Quinn 5.5, Walters 5.

Serbia

Stojkovic 7; Rukavina 6.5, Ivanovic 6, Bisevac 6.5, Kolarov 6.5; Basta 6, Fejsa 6.5, Matic* 7.5, Tadic 7; Djordjevic 7, Markovic 6.5. Subs: Tosic 6.5, Llajic 6, Sulejmani 6, Scepovic -.

* = man of the match