Suspect decisions must be tackled

THE inevitable response to defeat in competition for any Irish international team is an over-reaction: out with the old, in with the new.

The only meaningful response from those involved is to engage in an honest, objective examination of performance and decisions made and not made.

Mick McCarthy and his assistant Ian Evans will have discussed what occurred in the Lokomotiv Stadium, Moscow, and will surely spend time examining the video of the game.

When that is done, I have no doubt, they will gather the troops in Dublin next month and send much the same team selection out to play Switzerland.

The players who excelled in the World Cup two months ago have not become bad players. Mistakes were made that must be avoided in the future.

People asked me what was meant when I suggested Ireland’s ”mind-set” was wrong. The question was interesting because reference to ’complacency’ and ’over-confidence’ do not exactly fit the situation.

The Irish players were neither of these things but to spend time in the Irish training camp leading up to the game was to detect a change in attitude.

The manager touched upon it when he said there was suddenly talk of Robbie Keane and Damien Duff becoming marked men due to their World Cup exploits.

He also pointed to a change of attitude on the part of the press representatives covering the Irish activities.

Two years ago, when Ireland opened their World Cup campaign against Netherlands in Amsterdam, the talk was of avoiding defeat; now Ireland were number one seeds in the European Championship group and the talk was of winning the group.

Team captain Kenny Cunningham spoke of determination to come out of the blocks fast.

The point is this: Ireland went into World Cup matches against Cameroon, Germany and Spain determined to avoid defeat. Now the talk was of winning, a ’mind-set’ encouraged by the knowledge that Russia had a new, inexperienced team.

Thus when Russia opened at a furious pace Ireland responded by trying to match them for pace and aggression. And when Russia scored, Ireland were in an inordinate hurry to draw level. By over-extending themselves in attack, they left themselves vulnerable in defence.

A couple of incidents were significant in this context. It was Damien Duff who got back to rescue Ireland by checking one lightning break as early as the 11th minute; Ian Harte deflected a shot from Duff against Russia’s woodwork and should have scored with a header.

Question: Why was Duff able to get back to his own penalty area before any defender? Harte’s deflection of Duff’s shot followed a corner, but his header came from open play, so what was he doing up there?

These incidents meant Ireland had lost sight of their principal job. The emphasis was on scoring rather than preventing goals.

It was right that Ireland approached the game by setting out to win. But it was imperative that Ireland’s first objective was to frustrate Russia by denying them possession.

Ireland should have been more circumspect in their tactical approach, as they were early in the second half. The first half problems may not have resulted from any tactical decision, perhaps it was simply a case of the players being swept up by the momentum of Russia’s frenzied opening.

The changes made in the course of the game were also open to question. The decision to play Robbie Keane behind two centre-forwards was suspect.

Keane is Ireland’s best goalscorer; taking him farther away from goal was self-defeating. I leave you with one further thought: Russia have lost only once in Moscow since the 1950s.