'It was one of them ones, we probably scored a bit early,' Shane Duffy told Tony O'Donoghue on the sideline after Ireland's 1-1 draw with Georgia on Saturday evening.
Duffy opened the score in the fourth minute against the Georgians. Jokes abounded about the 86 minutes of watching Ireland hold on which would ensure. Ireland did indeed end up holding on, not for the win, but the draw.
Speaking on Newstalk's Off The Ball on Sunday afternoon, John Giles called bullshit on the notion that you can score too early in a game.
I've heard this sort of rubbish, Duffy said it after, 'Maybe we scored too early.' I've heard this before when we scored in Serbia. How can you score too early? We should tell the players then, 'whatever you do, don't score too early,' because we're going to go negative on it.
Once you score a goal, it should give you the confidence to go at them again.
Going ahead and then failing to build on the lead has been a frustrating trait of Martin O'Neill's team. Giles made reference to another game from earlier in this World Cup qualifying campaign - the 2-2 draw with Serbia. Ireland also took the lead early in that game. Thereafter, they sat back and ended up going 2-1 down. Daryl Murphy rescued Ireland with his first international goal.
Giles found similarities between that game against Serbia and last night's match. In both games, Ireland allowed the opposition's strengths to flourish rather than exposing their weaknesses.
When we played Serbia away, it's not that long ago, we scored early on and we sat back straight away. They went 1-1, 2-1 and nearly made it 3-1. Then we started to playing and we scored and might have won the game because the goalkeeper was hopeless and they were terrible at the back. Where Serbia were good was coming forward.
Once you start sitting back, you're giving the ball to them where they're really good, instead of getting at them where they're weak.
I think that team last night was similar.
The 76-year-old believes it wouldn't do Ireland 'any harm' to go into games with the attitude of a team which is a goal down.
He also doesn't understand why a team should play any differently away from home than they do at their own ground.
I don't believe in this away from home business at all. The goal posts are the same; the ball is the same; the pitch is the same; the grass is the same. Of course, you can play away from home, unless the fella is an absolute coward and he shrivels up and doesn't want to play away from home.
I don't think Wes Hoolahan is like that; I don't think any of the players are like that.
Picture credit: Sportsfile
