Swan songs lift the spirit

WORLD CUP 2002: You can't mourn forever, eventually you have to organise. So? We beat the Cameroon one apiece as the World Cup broke open at last, and all the rolling delirium and tidal hysteria of one crazy race spilled out and into a Saturday afternoon in Niigata. This is our new history and geography.

Roy. Mick. Mattie. Saipan. Izumo. Niigata. Names that resonate.

Deeds that shake us. One apiece. The sense of fun is back.

Niigata. That sprawling neon-swamped town set down in an ocean of rice fields had never seen anything like this before, nothing like the raucous uninhibited spontaneous gush of noise which greeted the Irish players as they set foot on the perfect turf of the Big Swan stadium. Nothing like the renewed communion between team and fans that began before kick-off and went on for 10 minutes after the game ended. Nothing like it.

The afternoon light was delicate and wan as it refracted through the epic curves of the sweeping roof. The breeze poured through the white arches and porticoes, effortlessly air conditioning the entire football palace. And from one end came a giant guttural roar, big and rolling like a tsunami.

No chant yet born, just a visceral roar. Whooaaaaa! One from the heart.

They said seven thousand Irish but they didn't know for sure. Maybe nine.

Maybe 10. That roar defied any census, the noise was the pent-up emotions of a people who've been through the ringer for the sake of football.

The ringer? Yup! A people who've listened to the greatest experts, sociologists, spoofers, shamen and opportunists that their media has to offer, people who just wanted after all to see their team win a bloody football match the honest way.

The Irish players in their white warm-up gear stood and gazed. These were the emissaries from home. They carried word that it was time to shut up and to put up. World Cups don't belong to the teams that play in them, they belong to all of us, so lads, please stop crying, there's work to be done.

It was as sweet an afternoon as we have enjoyed on this grand stage. Playing teams like Cameroon is the essence of the World Cup experience. The Africans made us look small and anaemic at times. They moved with such elegance and muscularity and players like Kalla at the back, Foe in midfield and the rampaging Eto'o up front looked set to write their names all over the story of this game. We had to figure out a way to get into the match.

Doing just that stands as Mick McCarthy's greatest managerial achievement.

This was our 10th time out on the biggest stage and if Giants Stadium in 1994 stands as the only match we have won in regulation, then the zenith of our footballing achievement in the Big Swan pushes it a close second.

Certainly it was the overarching achievement of the McCarthy era, an explosion of spirit and bravery which turned us into more than the sum of our parts.

All the troubles which the team wore like a collection of grey overcoats for the past 10 days, all those troubles were stashed away at last. They played the first half like a team with lead boots as Cameroon threatened our central defence again and again before dissecting it in the 39th minute. We settled in for the obituaries, for the vulgar post-mortems and for a few days of calls for the restoration of Roy.

The second half wiped those thoughts away though like a cloth cleaning a blackboard. Duff was the sprite we always thought him to be. Keane the younger summoned all his brassy temerity. Mark Kinsella and Matt Holland, men who spend their whole lives answering questions about Roy Keane, answered a different sort of query as they puttered grandly at midfield.

There was talk late last week of the team needing to find new heroes or polish up old ones. In the end they did both. Gary Kelly was magnificent. He shunted around from position to position like an odd-job man but was the driving force throughout. Young Steven Reid, who plies his trade in Cold Blow Lane, South East London, took his bag of tricks out in the Big Swan and his second-half free-kick almost snapped the wrists of Alioum between the sticks for Cameroon. And Steve Finnan; plugged into the team at half time, his contribution was massive and inspiring.

During one stage in the first half when we managed to string a few passes together the Irish crowd, with misplaced hubris, began taunting their absent hero. "Are you watching Roy Keane?" they chanted, over and over. It was misguided machismo and the Irish team responded meekly anyway. In the second half when the great swashbuckling revival began in earnest the place was too engrossed to inquire about Roy.

The high point was Holland's sweetly struck goal. He is developing a collection of beauties scored in the great stadia of the world to show to his boys Mac and Jacob when they grow older. After that Niigata belonged to Ireland and it was the Cameroonians who greeted the final whistle like a reprieve.

We don't want for context in which to place this achievement. We just have to ask France. Senegal and Cameroon jousted gamely in the African Nations Cup final a couple of months ago. Everything which Senegal bring to the party of the opening game was replicated by Cameroon.

Yesterday the Irish got back to work at Chiba, a great swathe of land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay and given over to concrete. Moving on has been the key all the way for the Irish and they were glad to do so again.

The training facilities are good, the hotel wonderful, the mood on an upswing. Wednesday looms large already. The Germans are suddenly rampant and are a conundrum which must be cracked. The Irish are getting on with the great adventure they promised themselves.