Larry Ryan: Whatever happens Stephen Kenny, let’s persist with passing experiment
UEFA Nations League Group B1, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 8/6/2022. Republic of Ireland vs Ukraine. Ireland manager Stephen Kenny dejected. ©INPHO/Bryan Keane
Say one thing for Stephen Kenny, he has done his bit to replicate the lurching emotions we ought to be experiencing right now, if the World Cup was on.
These should be the fullest days of our lives. In normal circumstances, we’d be dismantling plenty of reputations and reassessing careers based on a few days’ evidence.
In the glory days of Eamo and Gilesy and Billo, we’d see enough in a week to dismiss capitalism and industrialisation and full education as ways forward if nations are to make any more advances on the pitch.
We’d certainly compile enough information to raise the alarm about the widespread use of personal stereos.
Now it turns out a week is a long time in relatively meaningless international football too.
Last Saturday, Kenny featured in the sidebars of this page, in a footnote raising some alarm that he was still revisiting battles from his early days in the Ireland gig, when it might be more in his line to keep two eyes on the present.
That was where the Ireland gaffer needed to keep things over this fortnight — in the margins and sidebars. Ticking over. A draw here, maybe scratch a win there. Nothing dramatic required, it’s not the World Cup.
Just fulfil the fixtures, keep the project ticking over, keep the vibes chill. Don’t alert the columnists who had already started another one about the state of Gaelic football or what can be done to fix The Sunday Game.
Four or five points from these four games and a few smiles afterwards from the Ireland youngsters everyone is so enthusiastic about and we’d have happily sent them on their holidays with all the goodwill in the world for bigger days ahead.
But it’s all gone Pete Tong.
And now that match Stephen struck last weekend when burning his critics has lit a fire that’s already getting out of control.
Maybe it started to unravel when young Bazunu was injured. Already we’d trust that lad anywhere. While Caoimhín carries all our hopes and good wishes, and will probably be brilliant, he’s still regarded a little bit like an exchange student living the dream. Like he’s photobombing those Liverpool celebration pics.
But Gav. He’s serving his time in unglamorous goals. And something in his bearing means you’d throw him the keys to anything. With all the financial institutions running out of the country, wouldn’t we be perfectly happy giving any few bob we have to that kid to mind for us?
He can’t be much longer than evens to be president one day. He’ll probably present the Late Late. No, he’ll save the Late Late.
So that wasn’t ideal. But maybe it went wrong before that with Kenny’s insistence we were intending to top this Nations League group.
Was there any need? As they probably say in Kerry, walk aisy even while only there’s a small sup in the jug.
Shouldn’t he have taken into account that we’d likely be rusty and leggy this time of year? And that any Ireland team — even one with great intentions of passing the ball — needs to be fully at it, to be at anything.
There was no need for statements of intent. He’d done enough to get many on board for the long haul. Just keep the head down and carry a sheet of paper when you’re walking to the photocopier to let us know you’re working away.
It comes with the territory that Kenny has had to be an evangelist and a salesman, constantly touting a better vision of what we can become. Always across unbeaten runs or possession stats. In most respects, the thrust of his messages have been just what we needed to hear after decades of talking ourselves down. But he oversold this one. The best gaffers know when to go handy on the rhetoric too.
Now everything’s on the table again. And maybe that’s the chief problem with Kenny as boss, that every loss triggers a referendum. That some will always nurse a nagging fear we’re going in the wrong direction, like they’ve sat into an unmarked taxi in London after a few.
Already in some quarters we are hearing the expression ‘the experiment is over’. Empty the test tubes, rinse the very idea of employing a local man down the sink, and get on the blower asap to see how Big Sam is fixed.
And put away the callipers, results are conclusive on that groundbreaking experiment with passing the ball. So can we not just knock it? Ideally onto Shane Duffy’s head.
It’s always been a worry that Stephen Kenny hasn’t enough credit in the bank to convince us we can play. That we really need to hear it from a foreigner, maybe via an introductory interview on the Late Late where he reveals he has always loved Ireland.
Park all that for a while though. As relatively meaningless as it still is, these are four days with a lot at stake, not least for those on both sides of the culture war who need to be proved right on the internet.
We might still take four points. In the glory days of Eamo we’ve seen plenty of u-turns pulled in the space of a week this time of year. Anyone can lurch from Bengal lancer to the next John Oxx or Aidan O’Brien.
But if we are even deeper in recrimination this time next week, if the exit polls say go, let’s hope we are cribbing about the minutiae of Kenny’s reign rather than the rhetoric. Let’s hope we are wondering about the need for five defenders, about understaffing the engine room, about the pace of the passing or inconsistency of selection, about the conservatism of the full-backs.
Let’s not shoot the message with the messenger. Because we will have no difficulty finding somebody who will assure us, once the early pleasantries are out of the way, that we don’t have the players and he must cut his cloth accordingly.
And we have no shortage of players who will believe him.
RTÉ ought to be working right now on a format for the autumn on renovating The Sunday Game, which everyone agrees needs a bit of work done, and ideally an extension built. Get in Bannon, Gavin, McIntyre all the big guns.
Des Cahill wants more room to put his feet up and invite a bit of laughter, which would be no harm, I suppose. But it’s the space they need, at the height of split season.
Would there be any hope at all of installing an old red button — or green if you must — to present a menu of all the football highlights you could wish for, to clear out the clutter a small bit?
It’s not as if our less tech-savvy citizens aren’t being subjected to a lot worse when they go to buy a match ticket.
Then Des would have all the space in the world for bantz, though going full Up For The Match might be discouraged.
In reality, isn’t it more rows we want, than jollity? Loughnane in there, or Brolly, causing grief?
But that would require more change of direction than format.
Won’t be claiming expertise on this front since it had to be explained in quite frank terms why he won’t be retiring to stud. But he still delivered enough soft ‘picture perfect’ headlines over the years to get the nod.
The Real Madrid man togged for a five-a-side in Fethard during the week. Timely, now we’re down for 20 years in the hurling, and might need to reform Thurles Town.
In a beautiful vid doing the rounds, he flew to Holland to meet a Ukrainian refugee with Down Syndrome who could only be persuaded to flee home by his mother on the promise he’d meet the big man. Time the hurlers started doing Cena goal celebrations again.
Just living their best Livs as role models. Though to be fair, Ricky Gervais at his cringe pomp, would struggle to match the comedy himself, Poults and co provided this week.
What’s keeping them kicking off the women’s Euros and the world hanging for a tournament?
