On The Road To Nowhere?

It’s all my fault. For only the fourth time since 1983, I missed a competitive Ireland fixture, having spent the afternoon of the Kazakhstan affair running frantically around Warsaw trying to locate an Irish bar. It wasn’t until about nine in the evening that I found one – the imaginatively named ‘IRISH BAR’ just off Krakowskie Przedmiescie – by which time Trap’s troops had, by all accounts, put you all through gruesome emotional trauma.

I was, of course, kept up to speed with events by my comrades back home, who seemed to unanimously agree that the display represented the definitive low-point of Trap’s increasingly disastrous tenure. Nonetheless, with two goals in the last five minutes, I was happy enough to focus on the silver lining: three precious points which might, just might, transpire to be priceless this time next year.
I’d taped the match, but since my return, I haven’t yet had the stomach to sit through it. The other night, after an unspeakably grim week which involved notice of imminent eviction and the spectre of looming unemployment thanks to a ridiculous furore about a foreign aristocrat’s breasts, I thought I’d cheer myself up by watching the final five minutes of Kazakh-gate and skipping the first 85. And I’ve got to say that, based on the five minutes I saw, it was a thoroughly excellent performance.
Sure, the current regime’s fixation with lobotomised long-ball tactics is indeed terrifying, as is Trapattoni’s complete inability (or unwillingness) to recognise the gravity of the plight into which it has plunged us. But good god, Kevin Doyle’s winner was as sweet as they come, a truly magnificent strike in a vastly pressurised situation in the 90th minute of a must-win qualifier away from home. In the circumstances, and in view of the horrors we endured this summer, any sort of win (however pig-ugly) is surely to be greatly welcomed.
I am not attempting to defend the indefensible, and as pointed out, I’ve yet to see the 85 minutes which preceded the heroic final flourish. All the recent evidence suggests that an improvement of approximately 10,000% will be required in order to live with the Germans next month; but the players might, just might, get us out of this one yet. Time and time again in the last four years, Ireland have turned in aesthetically hideous performances away from home against clearly inferior teams, but an often-overlooked point is that we’ve almost always won, which is surely preferable to weaving pretty passing patterns for 90 minutes and not winning.
None of this is to suggest for a minute that the manager is even a remotely credible figure by this stage, with fresh cause for despair now emerging almost every time he opens his mouth. He has blatantly stated that Andy Keogh is ahead of James McClean in the current pecking order; Robbie Keane appears to be undroppable despite mounting evidence of Shane Long’s visible superiority; he chastised Robbie Brady for ‘too much dribbling’ after the Oman friendly; he would appear to be more or less unaware of the existence of Arsenal’s Conor Henderson; his command of the English language, a source of mild amusement in 2008, is no longer remotely funny; and, above all, his success in masterminding innumerable Italian championship triumphs several decades ago appears to have left him with a sense of Papal infallibility whereby he never, ever, reflects for so much as a moment on the possibility that his approach may need a mid-game rethink, even when it’s screamingly obvious to everyone else.
That being the case — he isn’t going anywhere in a hurry, and the chances of him altering the script at age 73 are less than zero — it may be left to the players to take command of the situation. Germany, it should be apparent, are easily capable of invading Dublin next month and eviscerating us 3-0 or 4-0. The Russians, a far flimsier proposition than Germany in several key areas, arrived at the Aviva two years ago and ran rings, squares and parallelograms around us en route to a 3-0 lead before easing up and almost allowing us out of jail. Our record against genuinely good teams in the last two years offers very little cause for encouragement. Unlike quite a few international superpowers, Germany are completely unacquainted with the concept of ‘taking it easy’ in qualifying fixtures with a view to conserving energy for the battles ahead: a cursory glance at their results in tournament qualifiers over the last fifty-odd years reveals that they have a win rate of about 99%, with an average goal difference of terrifying proportions. The mere thought of their imminent visit is enough to make the bowels shift uneasily. Bring ‘em on.
It being mid-September, it would seem remiss of me not to mention the imminent All-Ireland finals. I watched the drawn hurling final last week, after the fact but blissfully unaware of the result (it was very easy to avoid the result in Warsaw), and found it spectacularly enjoyable from first whistle to last. Though I’d placed a mild wager on Kilkenny winning by a nose-hair, I wasn’t in the least bit unhappy to see Joe Canning lash over Galway’s equalising point from a tricky last-minute free, given that it now brings forth the prospect of another 70 minutes of such fine fare.
As for the football? Donegal have looked increasingly menacing as the year has progressed. They may not be the most strikingly talented collection of players in GAA history, but the organisational levels are astoundingly impressive, illustrative proof of the immense importance of tactics in the modern game. Like an NFL team, they have code-words to bark out at any given moment to signify the next play; Jim McGuinness apparently refuses to sanction a move until it’s been tried and perfectly executed at least six times in training; and they always appear to get stronger and stronger as games go on, which may be a sobering thought for Mayo in view of their near-implosion in the last 20 minutes in the semi against Dublin.
And yet, player-for-player, there is extremely little to choose between the teams. Donegal have developed a habit of winning and don’t look like snapping out of it in a hurry, but it may be that odds of 5/2 against Mayo are significantly over-estimating the difference between the sides. It may even be the case that, at 15/2, you would not be entirely mad to have a punt on the draw. At any rate, Dublin being uninvolved, I can at least sit back and enjoy the thing without particularly giving a toss who wins, a luxury not available when Trap’s troops or the Dubs are engaged in battle. May the best team win.
Any self-pity I might have been tempted to indulge in after a thoroughly horrible week was well and truly banished by the shocking news last Saturday evening of Ulster rugby centre Nevin Spence’s unimaginably horrific death in tragic circumstances. Had he lived, there is little doubt that he was on course for a starring role in the Ireland team over the next few years. Everyone who knew him testifies that he was a lovely bloke; a committed Christian but no Holy Joe, and a lad who, in his short but brilliant life, enriched all those who crossed his path or saw him play. Rest in peace.