Relief as truth serum hits home

Group D/ Ireland v Wales: For a little while on Saturday afternoon we nearly fell to getting out our astral charts and collectively studying the alignment of the planets with a view to coming up with a time and a date when Ireland might play well.

Having established that it was a wild and crazy idea for our galactícháins to play the mighty San Marino in February inquiries were made as to the wisdom of actually playing in daylight in March. Steve Staunton conceded that darkness might be better.

For the growing constituency of people who would quickly close the curtains if Steve's team were playing in the back garden unrelieved pitch darkness might be best.

The influx of "foreign" sports has changed things for those of us who work the Croke Park beat. Harvesting quotes is no longer merely a matter of riding the lift to the basement and wandering down to the tunnel to begin the reaping. Nor is it as easy as dandering down to the old bandroom in Lansdowne. There is security everywhere.

Even before you get into the lift you have to show your passport, a letter from your parents or guardian and subject yourself to an intimate body search.

We know that Steve Staunton sometimes arrives at press conferences looking as if he is expecting the Spanish Inquisition (okay nobody expects . . .) but on Saturday it was as if the FAI were expecting al-Qaeda.

When we got through the various checkpoints and random inspections we got a study in contrasting styles. Wales first. John Toshack came among us serenely secure in a job nobody else really wants. He said weird and wonderful things: "I thought the first half was bitterly disappointing . . . as bad a 45 minutes as we've had under me. . . it's difficult to see where a goal was coming from (for Wales) . . . I take the blame, definitely, I have to work a little bit harder . . . for qualification I would think it's over."

It was if the Croke Park tap water had been infected with a truth serum. Toshack continued softly retailing this incredible patter unperfumed by PR consultants or self-serving considerations.

"When you look at our options up front we are limited . . . against Slovakia our first-half performance though we were 3-1 behind at half-time was far better than today . . . we made a schoolboy error (against Slovakia) and in the second half I made a couple of very silly substitutions and we ended up getting beat five . . . if it had gone on another 10 minutes it would have been seven!"

We gaped and wished for Steve Staunton to have supped from the same tap. Duly he arrived.

Steve, unlike his team is getting better at these occasions, or so we thought until he chose yesterday to get into an ill-advised spat with the media over whether or not Lee Carsley had been misquoted on Saturday.

Anyway after his bizarre media performance in San Marino when he tried to convince us that we had just been watching Brazil, the gaffaw seemed on Saturday to have been watching something approaching the same game as everyone else.

We asked the condemned man if he was relieved with the stay which a win brought.

"I'm delighted to have the three points. It wasn't great, in the second half particularly. We were comfortable at the back. We marshalled Ryan Giggs and Craig Bellamy all day. I wasn't happy with our retention of the ball. We gave it away too cheaply. Wales kept it better than us in the second half. I'm pleased that we kept a clean sheet though." Not bad. Historians and biographers may mark Saturday down as the beginning of the New Deal era in Staunton's press relations. Press ask question. Manager gives frank answer. Excellent.

Then again perhaps there was just too much aura of Toshack lingering in the media room.

We asked again about how happy Stan felt just in case in the era of honesty he told us that he had just spent 20 minutes smoking wacky backy or swallowing Prozac.

"We know what we have to do on Wednesday night. That's to do the same again. I thought we started okay but the Welsh used their time getting the ball very well. Slowed the game down. Very hard for you to get momentum up. We'll try to get more ballboys around the ground, we'll get more balls around the place. I thought the lads coped well with it."

Courageous though it is for an Irish manager to speak of getting more balls around the place while still in the employ of the FAI, we didn't press the point. It's not too easy to interrogate a manager who is hanging on by a thread about the nuances of a necessary win but a bad performance, especially when the end could still be nigh.

We made small talk. You had Stephen Ireland on the right tonight Steve (ya mad thing)? Delicately put question about what was a pedigree chum of a midfield selection.

"We felt we knew what system they would play. Steve would get it in that hole without the donkey work. He played a little too narrow unfortunately. I changed him and Damien (Duff). Damien gave us a bit more width. Stevie, clever player that he is can play anywhere along the front line or in the middle. He slotted in nicely. Damien worked his socks off like he always does. Defensively he done a job on his marker too. John Toshack obviously felt he had done too good a job. He changed the man off him."

So to the housekeeping. Kevin Doyle. Fit? Unfit? Tick as applicable Stan. Robbie Keane? Gone from Wednesday with another yellow. Respond.

"Well Kevin hasn't been playing in any games. Match fitness is different from training. Robbie is out on Wednesday so we'll assess Kevin over the next few days and see. Young Shane Long was unlucky not to be involved today. With Robbie's suspension and maybe Stevie's omission (Ireland was okay by yesterday) through injury there'll be openings, maybe."

Then a couple of straight lefts which Staunton handled well. "Were you surprised by how bad Wales were?"

"I thought we made them look bad. We got in their faces. Stopped them. We knew what we had to. If you give the boy Robinson in the middle of the park time he is as good as anyone at getting it into Giggs and Bellamy.

"We gave the ball away too much in the second half and lost our shape a little bit."

Did you think the central midfield lacked creativity. What Douglas and Carsley? Lacking creativity? Why Sir, oughta . . .

"You always lack something in a game. In the second half our ball retention was very poor. That was summed up when Kevin flicked it blindly to Damien - he thought Damien was going. We ended up defending on the edge of our box."

Not a bad weekend all in all. To follow up a bad game which had at least ransacked a decent result with a bit of press squabbling yesterday set Staunton back a little but he moves on to Wednesday knowing that perhaps a point will suffice for him to keep the anorak for a while longer.

By Wednesday there should be changes. Stephen Hunt pressed hard on Saturday. Kevin Doyle will have to start despite the lack of match fitness. A partner? Come back Caleb Folan, all is forgiven.