Guile as much as guts the Kerr way

SOCCER: Well, we'll always have Paris. Wherever the unfolding qualification drama of this World Cup group leads us, we'll be able to look back on this past weekend in Paris and think that at that moment in time everything was running smoothly. We were rising as others were waning. We were young and strong and confident and dreaming. Paris has always been a place for people with those qualities.

The city of Paris was founded in 52BC and in October of AD2004 we came, we saw and we almost conquered. We took our time but we'll savour it for a while too.

The estimates of how many Irish were among the crowd of 78,863 in the Stade de France on Saturday varied greatly. Pessimists said the Irish filled one-third of the stadium. Optimists claimed they filled half of it. All agreed that they made all the noise and generated most of the atmosphere and that was in keeping with the game down on the turf.

It's an odd thing. In the last 20 years or so, in the time since Jack Charlton came among the people, we have often had teams of more talent and experience travelling to matches like this. There have been great nights, wonderful performances in terms of the fury we played with and on occasions the skill we played with, but often we seemed happy to play to stereotype.

The "continentals" did the "silkies" and "Johnny Foreigner didn't like it up him". And we would trample on Johnny Foreigner's tender sensibilities, take pleasure, great pleasure, in the fact that we were hard to play against, that for all the sophistication of host teams we could spook them with our sheer guts.

This team of Brian Kerr's is neither philosophically nor physically equipped for that. They play football on the carpet and there is very little muscle or height to be found in the ranks. These days we have to think our way through competitions.

On Saturday we thought as long and as hard as Rodin's famous statue, which still graces this city. We studied the French and then played them at their own level. We couldn't burst their rhythm with our big men, because we don't have big men.

So we imposed a rhythm of our own.

We shoved the ball out wide, using the expanse of the Stade de France sward for Duff and Finnan to forage and gambol. We wound Kevin Kilbane up and let him sow destruction down the centre while Roy Keane hung back and clubbed anyone who ventured near the vault of our goals.

Kilbane was man of the match but Keane's influence on those around him and on the way in which the game was played was just as obvious. From the second minute when he threaded a wondrously inventive snap pass through to Clinton Morrison, he was the player who controlled the tempo and rhythm.

There was more to enjoy than that. Morrison, until his untimely injury, was doing very well as the quasi-target man in the Irish attack. Not every ball stuck to his boot, but he was unlucky in that most of that early ball wasn't sweet. He was getting into the right places at the right time though, and it looked as if some bounty would fall his way. Around him and beyond, back in midfield, Robbie Keane buzzed and busied himself as usual.

Not that we possessed the attacking armoury the French had at their disposal. All night the Irish choir tempted fate with lilting choruses of "Thierry Henry? You're having a laugh!" but there were many occasions, especially in the second half, when a little va-va-voom would have granted the Frenchman the final laugh. The singed fingers of Shay Given's goalkeeping glove would make eloquent testimony to that.

As it was there was a sweet symmetry about the best chances which fell to either team. A long Pires free scraped over the heads of the entire Irish defence and the French right-back, the surprised William Gallas, found himself free and stabbed the ball just over the bar.

Later, a long Andy Reid free scraped over the heads of the entire French defence and the Irish left-back, the surprised John O'Shea, found himself free and stabbed the ball just wide of the post. After that a draw seemed inevitable and satisfactory.

There were times when the Irish might have won the thing, a late glancing header from Robbie Keane being one such instance, but overall, from a game of tactics and thought, shared points were satisfactory.

It wasn't wasted on anyone either that an away team's grasped point can be worth more than a home side's banked currency of the same denomination.

"Toujours au point mort" said L'Equipe forlornly yesterday morning, "le route vers Le Mondial 2006 se complique pour des Français qui, hormis Dacourt et Barthez, ont encore eté bien peu inspirés dans toutes le lignes." (Still in neutral, the road to 2006 gets more complicated for France, who, apart from Barthez and Dacourt, were still lacking inspiration in all areas)

For the Irish, the route to Germany 2006 is less complicated but hard work remains. The maxim on such journeys is to draw your away games and win your home games. The Irish opted to swallow the three toughest away games in the first half of the campaign.

Having secured draws in Basle and Paris they travel to Tel Aviv in March. Right now, though, Brian Kerr's side are in the strongest position in the group even though four sides stand on five points with three games played each.

The French, though moderately happy to have escaped with a draw on Saturday, have now lost four points at home and will be under pressure on their travels.

The Swiss dropped a couple of points at home to the Irish last month and failed to beat what looks like being a doughty Israeli team in Tel Aviv on Saturday. If the Irish can continue taking a decent haul from away games and the other sides keep taking points from each other, the route to Germany could even be free of the stress of play-offs.

"You have to earn it," said Kerr on Saturday night, "and I think we earned it well. We'll improve. When everyone gets settled into the rhythm of what we require we'll be better.

"It takes time to build a new team. Other players will come around, we'll have more friendlies, more experience, more options. The selection of the team will be harder, we can have more conjecture. It can be pointed out how wrong I was!"

Everyone laughed. It could be a while yet before Kerr's record bears argument.