Larry Ryan: Stephen Kenny battling to keep hold of the narrative as much as the ball

Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny during the UEFA Nations League B match against Bulgaria at the Aviva Stadium. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

As we waited yesterday for the FAI to apply its renowned investigative zeal to the case of the motivational video, it was worth noting that Ireland arguably played their best football under Stephen Kenny in the first 15 minutes of that Wembley friendly, seemingly under the influence of ‘political matters’.

On one level, it would appear to have been a lot of unnecessary work — if the Ireland boss really wanted to paint England in a bad light politically, he could surely have bypassed the talents of his in-house movie makers and just turned on the news.

But the Daily Mail broke off from exposing the scandal of young English black men buying houses to insist this was an Ireland team hyped up on ‘anti-English’ rhetoric. And if so, it was interesting to observe how that energy had been channeled.

All we have come to know about Ireland teams would have prepared us for some early adventures in ‘getting in amongst them’. We might have expected the occasional foot to be left in.

And our great historic infatuation with ‘the channels’ to be thoroughly explored by the many long balls being launched to ‘get them turned’.

Instead, for 15 eye-opening minutes, we actually played around and sometimes through England. If the lads had just taken a history lesson on the travails of a downtrodden nation, they were attempting to deliver in response a vision of an Ireland confidently asserting itself.

There was certainly no bloodlust, no recourse to brutality, not even any yellow cards. If this was taking the fight to an old enemy, it suggested Kenny has begun to reshape Ireland’s instincts.

Alas, as Anthony Daly calculated last week, the ‘bounce’ a team gets from psychological messaging rarely lasts beyond the first 15 minutes of a game, before more fundamental factors, such as pace and power and ability, make their presence felt.

And a cobbled-together team folded pretty tamely once the first England goal went in. Eventually, with little else to console us, and Jack Grealish skipping around the pitch, most fans would probably have settled for the odd reducer.

It was a tantalising glimpse, all the same, of what Kenny is trying to achieve. Just as there was in Ireland’s best overall performance under his watch which, encouragingly, came in the only match of much significance we’ve played, against Slovakia.

And maybe glimpses are all we can reasonably expect this early.

A recent Harvard Business Review study found 6,153 books currently available on change management, “each with a distinct take on the topic”.

They may differ on how to make it happen, but all the gurus will tell you resistance to change is inevitable and teething problems, while people get used to new ways of doing things, can wreak havoc within organisations. The HBR quoted a study showing “two out of three transformation initiatives fail”.

And it’s unlikely that any of these gurus compiled their findings during a global pandemic, where taking your seat on a plane is just the first of many lotteries for which you buy a ticket when on international duty.

So, all told, a man with the lofty goal of transforming how Irish football is viewed around the world is probably odds-on to fail.

So far, the most vocal resistance Kenny has encountered has come from those who do not want Ireland’s instincts reshaped, and certainly not by a gaffer who hasn’t at least proved himself in the rigours of the English Championship.

These are mainly former Ireland internationals who seem to share a slightly misty-eyed view of the great prosperity Ireland once mined down the channels. But unfortunately for Kenny, this group now have a 75-minute demotivational video from Wembley at their disposal. And two more 90-minute videos since to deepen their ennui.

Speaking to one former international this week, he couldn’t have cared less about Kenny’s video, but remains thoroughly mystified and unimpressed by Ireland’s attempts to pass through teams when they don’t field a single player comfortable receiving a ball played ‘through the lines’.

That, he insists, is why possession has delivered just one goal in Kenny’s eight games to date.

It is another retelling of the old ‘we don’t have the players’ line that everybody has grown tired of. Though the former player did show the same enthusiasm as many supporters on social media for ‘nailing the rat’ who leaked ‘concerns’ about Kenny’s motivational methods.

It’s even conceivable that the furore of the last day or so can fortify Kenny’s support among fans still hungry for change to be given a chance. There would be little patience for an underachieving player pulling the rug from under the new regime.

The bossman also received a timely boost yesterday morning when former Sun editor Kelvin MacKensie demanded he be sacked.

And Ireland’s long quest for a goal is now almost so epic as to become a rallying point — John Jensen once waited so long to score he became a cult hero.

But another thing all the change gurus agree on is the need for ‘buy-in’ from our old friends, the stakeholders.

And unfortunately for Kenny, the opinions of former internationals are likely to have greater influence on the stakeholders currently lining out in green than the views of hopeful fans.

There’s a fine line too between rhetoric and history. And without seeing Kenny’s video, or hearing his pre-match speech, it’s impossible to know how entitled anybody was to be offended by it.

If he lost even one player by ‘rolling it there’, that was untypically careless.

We saw how quickly a man like Steve Staunton, who carried the gravitas of a Liverpool champion, became a figure of fun.

It’s entirely possible that Kenny will prove the 21st century Mick Meagan. A well-regarded gaffer, Ireland’s first, who signalled transformative change from the ‘selection committee’ era, but who still departed without winning a game.

Already, there are members of the UK football media, who could invariably be relied on to back recent Ireland managers in a tight spot, who are advancing the theory that Kenny is ‘running out of time’.

All of that means Kenny faces a fight to keep hold of the narrative as much as the ball.