Larry Ryan: At a time when we can do nothing, at least Ireland weren't passive

Despite the disappointment of Thursday night, there was something uplifting about it all

IN THIS TOGETHER: Ireland’s Alan Browne is comforted by team-mates after his penalty miss in in Bratislava. Picture: INPHO/Tommy Dickson

Wasn’t it good, all the same, to get everyone together again? The whole lot of us in the same boat. At home, on the sofa, watching Ireland.

Ordinarily, we might be at a remove, represented out there, on these high-stakes nights, by our proxies: The Fans.

But there are no fans. And because nobody, thankfully, imposed a fake crowd drone over events in Bratislava, the urgency of the shouting on the pitch drew us closer to the action than ever. And judging by the scale of activity on WhatsApp, closer together.

With nowhere to go, no place to be, we were one virtual congregation at home, even Tony O’Donoghue.

They remain the nation’s great meeting points, soccer internationals. During this gathering, how many texts did you exchange, with how many people? Punctuating the action.

Still hoofing.

Actually playing a bit of ball now.

Some save by Duffy.

He’s got to finish that.

Fuck.

Probably the question most circulated: ‘Who’s that with George in commentary?’ Stephen Kelly does have the keen air of a trainee accountant out on his first audit for KPMG. But it needed a fresh voice, this new era, this reset. Somebody carrying none of the baggage and tired cynicism Ronnie and Razor are obliged to lug around. After all they’ve seen.

Incidentally, how has George never become cynical, after all he has described for us? How has he not been deterred from casual observations about Ireland’s uncommon cohesion, when it inevitably triggers Jeff Hendrick into finding touch?

How has he not been sucked of that joie de vivre, that zest of a man always seeing things afresh? That effortless ability to turn a shot of pitchside photographers into: “The chroniclers of the game in visual form”.

We need our Georges more than ever, these days.

Of course, there are those who take advantage of a rapt audience by revelling in the nation’s newest pastime: seeding ludicrous fake news stories.

This one ripped through us. If true, it would have been a bigger scandal than the night Roy Keane was eating cheese sandwiches when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink wouldn’t have been eating cheese sandwiches.

It wasn’t true. The FAI hadn’t forgotten to put Aaron Connolly and Adam Idah on the teamsheet. Instead their absence was due to this plague and its remarkable potency when it comes to infecting every single conversation we have.

We are already preoccupied with how it affects footballers. This week, the Scotland and England U19s abandoned an international after half an hour because a positive test came through during the game. Connolly and Idah missed this one due to the vagaries of seat assignment.

Is this constant uncertainty causing the carnage we see in the Premier League? Is it easier to throw your hat at it when 3-1 down to Aston Villa when you know you can’t really control anything anymore? And everything could finish up at any moment.

So we needed the shouting, a visceral indicator of how much the players care, despite everything telling them there’s no need. That there might not be a Euros anyway and even if there is you might sit in the wrong seat and miss it.

In any case, how can any canned noise recorded before Covid attempt to replicate the behaviour of human beings who know what we know now? When crowds return to football, presumably the world will sound entirely different.

So, the urgency of the shouting was needed. And the pain of the defeat was real. But it’s true too, that at a time when it has been ruled too dangerous for kids to play five-a-side at training, despair over a result can’t have the same depth.

Though there should still be an investigation at RTÉ to find out how Aprés Match was shown to us before the dust had properly settled. Before Stephen Kenny had even debriefed. When it was all still too raw.

But despite the disappointment Thursday night, there was something uplifting about it all.

At a time when the only way the congregation at home can win their battles is to do as little as possible, it was at least gratifying that our representatives on the international stage weren’t passive on their big night.

That they did what we haven’t been able to say for many years — took a full and active part in a crucial football match.

That’s all many have been asking of them, to participate in these occasions as equals. Not just to set their stall out, but to put their wares on it. 

The outbreaks of football were sporadic. Clusters. It might not always have led anywhere. But at least it inconvenienced the Slovaks enough that they could never put us under our old friend, the cosh.

And at one point it clearly impressed the local TV director enough that he experimented with an avant-garde, high-up camera angle, as though his audience deserved to see an Irish team passing and moving through fresh eyes.

And when extra-time beckoned, and when penalties loomed, there has to be pride that it wasn’t, for once, the Irish team hanging on, wishing away the minutes and seconds.

There was no relief when it went to spotters and maybe that counted against us, in the finish.

In a way, this was a cruel reminder that even if we put, once and for all, our tedious debates about playing style to bed, disappointment might still be available to us, thereafter.

Stephen Kenny has talked a lot about changing the perception of Irish football, of putting an end to the traditions of the last 35 years, when everybody in the world regards us as far more comfortable without the ball.

Of course, there were other deeply embedded Irish football traditions before Jack Charlton ever came to town, such as our regard for the moral victory.

We must be careful not to return to those days too.