Sweet little victory for Irish youngsters

MICK McCARTHY was making no glib promises when he addressed his players after Saturday's comprehensive destruction of Bolivia in the Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

Even as an Irish dressing room echoed to the reassuring sounds of victory for the first time in almost eight months, the manager was assiduous in his choice of words.

"You've made my job more difficult for me and I'm delighted," he told them. "It's been a good tour, you've earned your holidays and I hope to see you again next season."

The fruits of Ireland's biggest win since the 4-0 dismissal of Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in November, 1994, contained no guarantees for any of the players who had toiled so unsparingly in temperatures approaching 90 degrees.

Yet, the unspoken message was that the pressure is now firmly back on those established players who, for various reasons, were unavailable for the punitive end of season programme.

Committed by circumstances, as much as design, to an outrageous policy of experimentation, McCarthy sent Ireland's youngest ever team - average age 21 - into action against the Bolivians.

The measure of the success of the gamble was that a South American side, containing seven of the players who had had restricted Jack Charlton's team to a 1-0 win at Lansdowne Road two years ago, were sunk without trace by the interval.

Application and ambition came together to run the opposition ragged, and if some of the urgency left the performance in the second half, that was, perhaps, no more than was expected on a day when Alan Kernaghan, captaining the side, was forced to retire exhausted after just 35 minutes.

In this kind of heat, the old philosophy of hit and chase might have proved ruinous. Now, by stringing passes together and keeping possession, they minimised the advantage which the conditions conferred on the South Americans.

"Common sense told me that if we were to survive, we'd have to keep the ball and conserve energy," said McCarthy. "If you keep pinging it up the field and constantly have to chase after it it's very demanding. We went the other road today - and it worked."

Inevitably, it begged comparison between the old and new regimes, but just as he had skirted the definitive statement in his dressingroom talk with the players, he was careful to steer towards the middle of the road when he met the press later.

"Jack Charlton is one manager, I'm another. Different styles, different ideas on the game. Whether I can achieve what Jack did. I've no idea, but to be honest. I'd settle for 50 per cent of his success rate."

Irish supporters in a disappointing crowd of 15,000 in the Giants stadium, would judge that as a very modest target after watching a performance of verve and vision which reduced Bolivia to almost total frustrating.

True, the losers looked less than secure at the back on occasions, but it ought not disguise the merit of the performances of such as Keith O'Neill, Dave Savage, Gareth Farrelly and Alan Moore as they repeatedly found the gaps to Marco Barrero's goal.

Together with Shay Given, Gary Breen and David Connolly, O'Neill has emerged on this tour as a player who can go straight into the squad when McCarthy musters all his resources for the start of the World Cup campaign in Liechtenstein in August.

Quick and competitive, he grabbed the chance presented by Connolly's suspension, to boost his total of goals to three in just six international starts with a double strike in the opening 32 minutes.

Given the disparity in experience between the two teams, a lead goal in 12 minutes was more than the Irish were entitled to expect, and after a couple of outstanding saves by Given to deny. Marco Etcheverry and Julio Baldiviesco, there was more joy when the 20 year old Norwich player struck again.

On this occasion, Curtis Fleming's interception on the half way line, set up the chance and O'Neill, beating the offside trap by sheer pace, was sufficiently, composed to be able to look up and beat Barrero again with the angled shot from outside the penalty area.

The third and decisive goal materialised in injury time in the first half when Harte celebrated with all the enthusiasm of an 18 year old after his header hit the net, again from a Farrelly corner.

With the departure of Liam O'Brien, injured in a tangle with Etcheverry which earned both players a yellow card just before half time at least some of the fluency disappeared from Ireland's second half display, although Moore might have had another goal after a superb pass by O'Brien's replacement, Alan McLoughlin.

Given, growing in stature with each consecutive game, pulled off two more excellent saves from Ramiro Castillo and Baldiviesco before making way for Packie Bonner in the 86th minute.

Bonner's swansong in international football produced some of the biggest cheers of the day and when it was over, be could reflect that in 80 appearances in the national team, he had rarely experienced a more encouraging day for Irish football.