TV VIEW: YOU COULD have done with Mrs Brown's Boysor Jason Byrne or Neil Delamere popping their heads in the door of the RTÉ studio overlooking a sea of empty green seats in the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night. Anyone to put a smile on the faces of Messrs Giles, Dunphy and Brady, who you'd swear had been put through the wringer mangle in a torture chamber rather than witness Ireland take another onward step towards the Euro 2012 finals.
Maybe it needed someone like Brendan O’Carroll’s alter ego to barge through the door, knock Bill O’Herlihy off his swivel chair and put an arm around Liam Brady – the prodigal son of the analysts, returned from his stint as part of the Ireland management backroom team to be a part of the TV panel – who was seen as Giovanni Trapattoni’s defender-in-chief.
Poor Liam had the arrows firing from everywhere; from Bill at the top of the table and from Eamon Dunphy to his immediate left. “We dodged a bullet tonight,” opined Dunphy in the aftermath of the game with Macedonia, nearly two hours after he had finished his pre-match prediction with the assertion he was worried about the outcome and the rider, “I hope to God I’m wrong”.
Well, Dunphy – thanks be – was wrong. But only just, after a display which brought about the win if giving everyone watching heart palpitations right up to the very end.
“It was a poor performance, but the result was right,” added Dunphy, while John Giles couldn’t fathom why Ireland teams – even those gifted two goals by a goalkeeper named Edin Nuredinoski who looked eerily like Mr Bean and possessed the same calamitous traits – couldn’t kick-on from being two goals up early on.
“When we have something to hold on to, (we) seem to get more negative . . . . the best way is to grow with the goals and to dominate teams,” said Giles.
Brady was taking deep breaths before providing the facts of life. Simply put, Ireland doesn’t have the players to play the way his fellow-analysts would want.
“It’s not just the Trapattoni era,” said Brady with a little bit of exasperation. “It’s Irish football. We haven’t the players who are really comfortable on the ball at the back to build up from the back; we haven’t got the central midfield players who would spray the ball around, and Trap has gone for this (system), trusting people to do a hard-working job, to play with determination, to not do anything silly. It’s been getting us results,” said Chippy, pointing out that they were actually joint top of the table.
Bill seemed to be enjoying himself, stirring the pot with a big stick. Swivelling around in his chair, he wondered about the half-empty stadium for an important European Championship game. O’Herlihy had only started to make his point when Brady’s exasperation blew a fuse.
“Can I put a populist point?” wondered Bill. “Another one?” asked Chippy with the tone that he was running out of patience on populism “Yes,” continued Bill. “I’m looking at the crowds tonight . . . . .” He never did get to finish the point, although we all knew where he was going.
Brady jumped in with what was to become the buzz word for night. Rubbish. “You’re going to say that’s down to the football we play? That’s rubbish. That’s rubbish. That is rubbish. That’s rubbish,” said Liam, as if saying the “R” word often enough would make Bill back down. “That’s down to the working man, or the football supporters in Ireland not having any money in his pocket. That’s down to the football supporter in Ireland keeping the money so he has to pay for his heat. Do not go down that road Bill, that really is rubbish.”
If Bill thought he was going to get some back-up from Eamon and John, who had made clear their displeasure at the way Trapattoni’s team play the beautiful game, there was none forthcoming. “I think Liam is right. People don’t have €60 to come here. If you’re bringing two kids, that’s €180 . . . the natural constituents for football are the people hit hardest by this recession.”
Not having to fight his own corner for a change, Brady came in with a sucker punch. “That’s below the belt, that is. That’s a punch below the belt,” he said to Bill, who was now on the defensive.
“I don’t think it’s below the belt. It’s a fair question on the basis we are not an attractive team to watch.”
Giles, though, was siding with his pundits. “I think it’s an unfair comment, Bill,” said Giles – with Brady feeling vindicated by interrupting with, “There you go!” – who then went on to make the point that the stadium was full in the days when Jack Charlton’s team also played unattractive football.
It was the same theme on Sky Sports where Kevin Moran was making his point: “I think there may well also be a little bit of apathy towards this team at the moment, the disappointing result v Russia. Are we going to do well? Are we going to qualify?
“During the good times there was almost the expectation this was going to happen (qualify), I just hope this team can turn the corner and get a qualification and then maybe the crowds can come rolling back.”
