An Irishman's Diary

MY COLLEAGUE Brian O’Connor is right when he says (Opinion and Analysis, November 20th) that gamesmanship is “the nature of the sporting beast”. But if he will forgive me, there’s a certain irony in this coming from him. As racing correspondent, he covers a sport that involves actual beasts, whose commitment to fair play is never less than exemplary. In the many scandals that have hit racing, nobody has ever accused the horses of anything dodgy.

Yes, the humans who sit on them occasionally cheat. And what happens then? They get their skinny asses hauled into the stewards’ room to explain why the result should not be overturned. Unlike a football match, a horse race is not over when it’s over. Only when all the camera angles of an incident have been reviewed and the jockey’s story judged plausible comes the announcement “winner all right”.

If Henry had been a jockey, he would have been a winner all wrong. If he didn’t forfeit the race, he would at least have been banned for overuse of the whip. But that’s by the by, because he’s not a jockey. I agree with Brian’s general point that any footballer might have done the same thing and we shouldn’t be so precious about it.

It's true that, when I first saw the replays in a bar in central Paris, an hour after the match, I was shocked to the core of my being. The savage indignation that lacerated my breast was all the more galling because, like most Irish fans earlier, I had joined the singing of La Marseillaise, humming the bits I didn't know before blasting out the chorus: Aux armes, citoyens! (To arms, citizens!).

Little had I realised that Thierry Henry would take this advice to heart.

So for a few while after the game, I experienced a revolutionary rage against French football aristocracy. I wanted to storm the Bastille. I wanted to see Henry starring in a new Gillette-style ad for an even closer shave, this time with a single-blade razor of the kind used on Louis XI and Marie Antoinette.

Then gradually, a more philosophical outlook overtook me, as happens in Parisian bars. From the repeated replays of the goal (the TV was showing it approximately every 15 seconds), it was clear that France was already engaged in serious hand-wringing. There was shame in the faces of home supporters. And the local boys in green – the Algerians who were cruising Paris in triumph after their team's win – took time out to sympathise with " pauvre Irlande".

Soothed by this and a couple of pints of Kronenburg, my anger subsided and it occurred to me that there were worse ways to lose.

Penalties, for example. Remember the one that knocked us out of 2002 World Cup: a scuffed shot down the middle of the goal, bouncing over Shay Given’s foot? That was a rank injustice against a team that – like Wednesday night – had played heroically. But we couldn’t blame anybody for it.

And what if Fifa ordered the French game replayed? Presumably it would be in Paris again, and Ireland would once more start 1-0 down: despite having already outplayed the hosts over 90 minutes on their own pitch. A fair replay would have to be a one-off match at a neutral venue, starting scoreless.

BUT EVEN given that, could we be as good again as the other night? Could the French be as bad? Assume for argument’s sake that France would definitely win the replay. Would we really exchange the outcome of Wednesday’s match for one in which they beat us fairly? I don’t think so.

The fact is that, if we had to lose, this way was not entirely unpleasant. It’s hard to imagine a set of circumstances that would have allowed us to feel any more smugly self-righteous than we can now. The chain of events that began with Fifa fiddling the seedings, and ended with the handball, have left us so far up the high moral ground that if the polar ice caps melted tomorrow, we wouldn’t get our feet wet.

Of course, I’m sorry for the Irish players, who played so bravely. I’m sure they’re bitterly disappointed at not making it to South Africa, and they have every right to be. I’m sorry too for Giovanni Trapattoni, well paid as he is to deal with such setbacks. But having less invested in the outcome, we mere supporters can’t complain too much.

For one thing, although we generally held our end up well in Paris, there was something less than convincing about the chant: “Whatever will be, will be/We’re going to Afric-a.” To paraphrase Seamus Heaney, this was a case of hope and geography failing to rhyme.

But in my case at least, fatalism had inoculated me against disappointment. After watching Robbie Keane miss the last of three glorious chances we had to seal the victory in normal time, I was fairly sure it was all going to end badly. The only question was how.

Leaving Paris on Thursday night, I had already perfected my Gallic shrug of resignation. Like many Irish fans at the airport, I was wearing the new-season cloak of martyrdom, fitted earlier that day. It was beautifully designed, as only French couture can be. As well as looking good, it was surprisingly comfortable. As with all classic tailoring, it can also be expected to last a lifetime. I look forward to wearing it for many years to come.

fmcnally@irishtimes.com