Half-time in the Ireland-Italy game last Wednesday saw something extraordinary happen.
John Giles gave in.
The great old sage of Irish football, the grand master of getting on the ball, of playing the game on its merits and of displaying moral courage packed it in. Giles, in the face of a controlled Irish onslaught in the first half said basically, forget what I’ve been saying, this is how we should play.
And it is.
Identity is a tough thing for a team to find. Ireland muddled through the Trapattoni era trying to be diet Italy and to a point it worked until tournament football slayed the idea that containment should be the first thing on your mind.
What Trapattoni never understood about Ireland is that we’ve a mostly uncomplicated football psyche. We’re comfortable underdogs, our crowds roar with febrile delight at meaty challenges and we all harbour a secret love of set pieces and big centre halves. Ireland under O’Neill needed a reboot. They needed what a politician might say was a return to core values. We needed to embrace what we are and set about doing it right.
Wes Hoolahan’s Ireland career will be looked back upon as something of a waste and also be seen as something of a battle for our collective football soul. Hoolahan encapsulates our almost embarrassment of what we are. Ireland are at their most effective when turning an opposition, when full-bloodied challenges frame a game and when there’s something of a controlled madness to our approach. The likes of Hoolahan and his heir apparent Robbie Brady need to be the garnish, they need to be the occasional swing of a wand of a left foot but mostly Ireland need to be physical, they need to be direct, they need to whisper it; put them under pressure.
Martin O’Neill recognises this and while there may be regrets at how it took a Belgian humbling for him to fully embrace what Ireland are; there can be no question that this was a successful tournament. From the ashes of being treated like third-class football citizens in 2012, O’Neill forged a team of will and character in the very best Irish traditions.
This team gave us a moment in Robbie Brady’s winner that will live for all time, it gave us what John Giles would call: honesty of effort. O’Neill deserves immense praise for his handling of James McCarthy; so cowed in the face of the Belgian assault, the Everton man asserted himself hugely against Italy and France. Jeff Hendrick looks a player of class and poise and Brady himself looks ready to take on the mantle of Ireland’s shining light.
The first half against France was arguably Ireland finest at a tournament since Giants Stadium in ’94. Considering the opposition, the conditions and the partisan crowd, it was a terrific, mature performance that made us all believe.
That ultimately, it wasn’t enough can be put down to many factors. More than one were of the opinion that John O’Shea would have prevented the second Antoine Griezmann goal and there’s a strong case to be made that he wouldn’t have followed Oliver Giroud’s run as blindly as Shane Duffy did. But Duffy excelled against Italy and while the experts will pick apart runs and draw lines as to where players should go; sometimes it’s just that Antoine Griezmann is world-class and world-class players sometimes take you to places you shouldn’t go.
Much was made at the outset of this tournament about how Ireland had the oldest average age but as we look to the World Cup qualifiers, we can look to the likes of Duffy, Hendrick, Brady and Seamus Coleman taking ownership of this team and driving it forward.
We’ve all scoffed at the notion of brave defeats in the last few years. But brave defeats are ultimately our victories. It’s not a lack of ambition to want Ireland to be competitive at this level, it’s not ridiculous to just want Ireland to yes, damnit, give it a lash. Roy Keane spoke before the Italy game of wanting players to show courage and balls and they have. It’s all we can ask for. We can always aspire to do more, of course we can, but by embracing who we are now, we can continue to dine at the top table every two years.
We bloody the big guy’s nose. Keane famously spoke in 2012 of not just going along for the sing song. This team look like giving us more reasons to go along for more sing songs in the years to come.
