Anyone from a county with realistic ambitions of doing well in top level Gaelic football who claims to have enjoyed Dublin’s utter dominance during their six in a row spell is either not being true to themselves or delusional. By the way, that observation is not in any way meant a a slight on the greatest team to have ever played the game or their straight forward, inspirational manager, Jim Gavin.
Rather, the point was being made to underscore the simplicity around which Gavin’s modus operandi was based. Only part of which was getting the ball from a kick out to dead at the other end of the field in 16 seconds at most.
Now, the actual results of how many times they actually managed to pull it off will be known only to the inner sanctum but, in view of the fact that Jim ad nauseum peddled the line – when asked what it was that made his team so good – that they just “Stick to the processes”.
So fond was Jim of advancing such reasoning, in fact, that the satirists of the nation got hours of airtime out of extracting the Michael out of the Clondalkin man for it.
However, said satire was meant in the most complimentary terms possible. Moreover, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine Republic Of Ireland manager Heimir Halgrimsson preaching the same mantra to his players over the last couple of weeks. Well, that and being a very strong advocate of the value of noise cancelling headphones.
Especially given the amount of verbal and written slurry which has engulfed the Irish camp over the last couple of weeks. Between the incompetence of the FAI, the goading of one of our own for having the balls to stick to his principles and not line out against war mongers Israel and the audacious utter scutter Benji’s beasts were spouting about the Irish camp.
Make no mistake, this is not a great Irish team from which the dentist is trying to extract results, but, whatever processes the big Icelandic has in place the lads have obviously bought into.
Because, even though there are some who would actually convulse rather than admit to it, the affable adopted Irish man is absolutely getting the best out of the resources at his disposal.
With all the shit which has gone on surrounding the terrorist state, the boys in green could be forgiven for having their eyes a little off the ball in the first match of the window against Kosovo. Yet even at that they held out until the last kick of the match and were desperately unlucky to concede.
However, while every time a team represents the country is obviously an important fixture, not since the night the late Alan McLoughlin hit the net in Windsor Park, Belfast has so much other than the result of the actual match rode on a fixture.
And, to that end, when it was time to empty the recycled food waste or vacate the bathroom, Heimir’s Heros produced a calm, clinical and confident performance with the front three almost discovered by accident – Jack Moylan, Adam Idah and Troy Parrot – taking care of business inside the first quarter of the game.
Mind you, as impressive as that was given the circumstances which surrounded it, I feel the Austrian result was an even bigger achievement.
Firstly because the men from Vienna are a much better team than the other rabble and secondly owing to the swashbuckling football our lads produced in enabling Parrot to construct a two goal lead.
Granted, the forfeiture of same will obviously have been a disappointment, but, I”d wager coins to curries if you’d offered the Irish camp a draw against Ralph Ragnik’s side before kick off they’d have snapped your arm off for it.
And so, we arrived at the final sordid mess in what surely has to count as the biggest scandal ever to engulf Irish soccer – and that’s saying something. A home game for the Republic…in Serbia! How UEFA and/or FIFA got away with not having the balls to expel the mass murderers from football altogether is quite baffling. But, when they at least drummed up the guts to deprive the scumbags of home fixtures, why the likes Ireland or other sides had to suffer the same fate is beyond me. Double punishment.
Anyway, in fairness to all with the Irish camp – with the exception of the FAI bigwigs – in so far as was humanely possible, they very evidently had the noise cancelling headphones deployed with Jim Gavin’s mantra set to Repeat. Because, while there will be some – indeed there already has been – labouring on the point that they failed to close out the deal against either Austria or the other crowd. But, if you ask me, given the palaver which has swamped the last month(s), I’d have thought they did very well to get as much out of the block of fixtures as has been the case.
Furthermore, with Kosovo at home still to come, there’s no doubt in my mind that they can get the necessary done to progress to the next stages if they just stick to the processes!
Fág freagra