Be chivalric instead of a fool, Trap
The sons of King Henry II are on the eve of being executed by their father, played by Peter O’Toole. As he and death approaches them in the dungeon, one of them says to his brother Richard the Lionheart: “You chivalric fool, as if it matters how a man falls down.”
Richard, played by Anthony Hopkins, replies: “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
Richard is right, it matters how you fall, and as John O’Shea pointed out last Friday night, it matters how you lose. It’s a point John Hayes stresses in his fine new book.
“No matter how bad things are in a match,” he wrote, “you have to hang in… You have to hold onto your self-respect as a team at all costs.”
Like O’Shea, he was on an Ireland team hit for six by a European super team. In Paris in 2006 Ireland had conceded half-a-dozen tries against a rampant French team to trail 43-3 with another half an hour of rugby to be played. “It was embarrassing,” he said. “We could’ve been a laughing stock. But we kept going.” In fact Ireland would go on to score four tries themselves. They still lost, 43-31, but they had not been defeated.
Other days they did not make such inroads into such deficits. In 2002 at Twickenham Ireland trailed England 31-6 at half-time. By the end it could have been 70 had they surrendered, but instead they kept it to 45 to lose by ‘just’ 34. It was a hammering, but as Hayes noted, not an utter humiliation. Ireland had still tried to keep the scoreline down. “If you bust your bollocks to make a tackle but they still recycle the ball and score anyway, at least you’ve kept some bit of dignity about yourself.” It matters how you fall. It matters how you lose.
Not to Trap though. After the game he told reporters that he told his players, “When you lose, conceding one goal or six goals or three goals, it’s the same.” The wisdom of those Lionhearts, Richard and John Hayes, elude him, just like a lot of things – such as a firm grasp of reality – elude him these days.
He’s clearly lost his dressing room. While the players must be somewhat culpable for their capitulation against Germany, the Tipperary hurlers can testify that even champions have a breaking point when a relentless opponent is insistent upon exposing just how fragile your morale and bond with their manager is.
Trap has lost the trust and support of the Irish general and football public too. The one thing he has not yet lost is his dignity. But now even it is in jeopardy.
He has obviously been a great football man and it should be remembered that for a few years there he was great for Irish football. But even in our last qualification campaign his resistance to change was worrisome and as someone once observed, “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”
His mindset is so fixed he never even consulted Brian Kerr for a scouting assessment of the Faroe Islands. Football people like Kerr are below him. We’re all below him. Repeatedly throughout his reign by his words and his deeds he has viewed and treated this footballing nation as Lilliputians, as if this island wasn’t the Ireland of Keane, Brady, Giles and Whelan but one of the Faroes.
And yet we’ll forgive him that foible and everything else if he were to go peacefully. Nearly all the best outstay their welcome that little bit. Even when we didn’t believe in him we all admired him, liked him. If he were to accept that it’s time for both him and Ireland to start seeing other people, we would recall him and much of his time with us fondly. But if he has to be taken away kicking and screaming, his demise will overshadow his achievement and take all of the good out of it.
To fall on his own sword might mean giving up a million quid and a few dollars more in compensation but if he has to be fired he loses so much more, something priceless. They call it dignity.
Jack Charlton always said that the time for him to go would be when he no longer had the support of the Irish people. He knew his time was up after Anfield, even though they sang instead of booed that night. He just wished he’d been given a few more days to make it seem like his own idea rather than the FAI’s.
Trap has that luxury if he wants in the coming days.
The fall is all that’s left, Gio. Be chivalric instead of a fool. How you fall matters a lot.
