Foul Play: The Late Late Show

Timing is everything, and the natural reaction when Shane Long finally latched onto Wes Hoolahan’s downward header and rattled the back of Fabianski’s net was, obviously, one of undiluted euphoria. Few experiences in football are as cathartic and joyful as the kitchen-sink equaliser deep into stoppage time: and after a frenzied second-half rally during which we had laid siege to Poland’s goal for lengthy spells, there could be no doubt that this one was fully deserved.

When the smoke had cleared, of course, we were left to ponder whether the glass was half-empty. It is doubtful whether too many of us would have been happy to settle for a point in advance of the Polish encounter, and with the group now at the half-way stage, we are still mired in fourth place, which will not be good enough. It feels like several thousand lifetimes since we actually beat any international team of serious stature in a competitive fixture (that’d be Holland, 2001) and while it’s plausible that we could just about make it to next summer’s party by continuing to draw against the decent teams and beat the poor ones, the likelihood is that at some point we’ll need to actually outscore somebody.
And yet, there was a sense of a corner being turned on Sunday night. Certainly the second-half display, during which we rattled the woodwork twice before eventually reaping the minimum reward our efforts deserved, was the most sustained spell of fluent attacking football witnessed from an Ireland team since, if we’re honest, Paris 2009. The Aviva itself also seemed to come alive for the first time in living memory, a genuinely pressure-cooker atmosphere contrasting starkly with the pin-drop silence and general air of jaded indifference that has marred far too many Ireland home games these last few years.
And you’ll have noticed that our infuriating propensity to give away crippling, damaging goals at the wrong end deep into stoppage time appears to have been reversed. In our five qualifiers thus far under the O’Neill regime, that was the third time we’d altered the match outcome with a vital intervention at the death. The table confirms that those three strikes have made the difference between Ireland being hopelessly out of sight and being well in the hunt; more generally, such late recoveries tend to be a symptom of a vibrant team spirit. You’ll recall that we spent almost the entirety of World Cup 2002 chasing 1-0 deficits and flinging the kitchen sink at our foes in impassioned desperation, and you’ll recall that it always seemed to work. The question of why we always seem to find ourselves 1-0 down in the first place is a vexing one, of course, and O’Neill will do well to spend the weeks ahead scrutinising the first half of Sunday’s match rather than the second.
It is undeniable that, as fans and pundits alike, we can easily fall into the trap of attaching undue significance to the way games end rather than the way they start: we ought to look at the entire 90-minute picture rather than allow emotional crescendos such as Sunday’s to blind us to what has gone before. And the first half was indeed grim: far too sloppy in possession, far too ponderous and slow in building attacks, alarmingly shaky at the back (Robbie Brady, Marc Wilson, John O’Shea and even Shay himself could all have done more than they did to prevent Peszko’s goal).
There is also, surely, overwhelming evidence mounting all the time that Robbie Keane (36 in July) is no longer the man to lead the line against genuinely substantial opposition. Whatever the obvious merits of exploiting his predatory poacher’s instincts in games against the Georgias and Gibraltars, Robbie (and I’ve long been one of his most vociferous defenders) clearly no longer has the wherewithal to make any appreciable impact on big games against serious teams, and a Walters-Long partnership looks to be very obviously the way forward.
Tony Cascarino, another stalwart servant of the Republic, outstayed his welcome as an international footballer by persisting until the age of 37, at least three or four years past the point where he had anything of note to offer, to the point where the sight of the big man being wheeled off the bench became something of a black joke to feed fans’ infinite capacity for gallows humour, rather than inspiring hope and optimism of any kind. It would be sad to see Robbie go the same way after all the wonderful things he has done for us down the years, and though he retains some value as an executioner against cannon-fodder teams or (less obviously) a half-hour option off the bench against decent ones, the prospect of him leading Ireland’s line at a major finals next summer, weeks from his 37th birthday, simply doesn’t bear thinking about.
And so, onto Scotland, who visit the Aviva in June. It is intensely irritating that the gaps between fixtures at international level are so bloody long: you sense the players would be more than happy to play the game next week. June also happens to be the time of year when the players are invariably at their most battle-weary and least sharp, after many months of gruelling combat with their clubs, and in recent years there has tended to be a rash of unexpected withdrawals, with some of our less devoted servants pleading that an itchy toenail renders them unfit for battle. It could happen again, but this looks on Sunday’s evidence to be a group of lads very much committed to the cause, as devoted as any fan, in no sense going through the motions.
There was nothing of note to be learned from Scotland’s 6-1 jogtrot against plucky Gibraltar, whose manager may be starting to have cause to review his pre-tournament declaration that their one and only aim was to qualify for the Euros. The suspicion here is that Ireland at our best have a higher ceiling of performance than our Celtic cousins, but the evidence of last November’s get-together at Parkheed would contradict that.
So, onward we match, not out of it by any means, not exactly setting the world on fire either, with five games left to decide our fate (or possibly seven, if you take the view that our likeliest finishing position is third place, condemning us to the agonies of yet another play-off). This will go right down to the death; and all we can do is steel ourselves, and keep the faith. Vive la Republique.