No fuss for new boss? It’s the economy, stupid

IS THAT it?

No cast of hundreds at an old Dublin venue, no lengthy press conference? No overseas media presence nodding sagely, no involved translations of questions from the floor?

No minor controversy about funding the manager’s wages, no pointing the finger at the departing gaffer?

Really, Declan Kidney and the IRFU have a lot to answer for.

Last week in the RDS, the appointment of Giovanni Trapattoni had the hallmarks of an occasion. There were certainly enough large security personnel and checking of credentials to confuse the official introduction of the new Republic of Ireland football manager with the launch of a new, highly marketable product.

And of course, in a way that was what last week was all about for the FAI, from the deliberate positioning of Trap, alone on the dais (apart from his translator), to the off-stage location of the senior administration in the body of the church, as it were.

It was an event. The FAI doesn’t often get a good press, and if you were still minded to throw some form of tantrum you could probably fling the toys out of the pram on the exact timing of Denis O’Brien’s emergence as the sugar daddy behind Trap’s wages, but who wanted to do that last Thursday week?

It was more than an event, it was a celebration, though we are firmly opposed to calling it an unveiling. To the best of our knowledge, no flimsy gauze material was removed or hurt at any stage of the proceedings at the headquarters of the Royal Dublin Society last week.

What did we get from the IRFU this week? An e-mail.

There’s low key and there’s low key, but this is so low key it’d open the basement to a cellar.

TIME TO remove the tongue from the cheek.

We are not castigating the IRFU for handling this matter in an appropriate way. A full bells-and-whistles press event to formally announce Declan Kidney as the new Ireland manager would be wonderful.

If you weren’t trying to concentrate all your energies on winning a Heineken Cup, that is.

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Giovanni Trapattoni has a couple of friendlies coming up which are useful only in so far as they provide a low-intensity re-introduction to international football for those Irish pro for whom wearing the green jersey is a burden too heavy to carry unless they receive a personal call from their international manager to return to the fold.

Anyway.

Declan Kidney has a career-defining, winner-take-all, curriculum-vitae dominating, place-in-history-cementing, seismic eruption to manage in Cardiff. It’s doubtful that he needs to persuade any of the professionals he has at his disposal to turn out.

Thus the relative amounts of hoopla on display last week and this week seem just about correct. Trapattoni had finished his season with Red Bull Salzburg, remember; although there has been some rumbling about the delay in appointing a successor to Eddie O’Sullivan, the only realistic candidate for that job has been up to his armpits in his latest campaign.

Of course, for those looking for symbolism, later generations may use the last week as a dividing line between the all-singing and all-dancing boom years and the new austerity. It was interesting to hear Kidney take a rare step outside the post-match context to paint on a broader canvas after Munster beat Saracens.

“This is an exceptionally special time,” he said. “We had a Celtic Tiger at home that was going for ever and ever and now seems to have stopped. This [Munster] is going to stop, too, but if we keep working, we’ll keep it going for as long as we can.”

An interesting point, and one that applies in a few different arenas.

The Celtic Tiger Taoiseach has gone, replaced by a hard-nosed Offaly hurler. The foundering Steve Staunton has gone, replaced by an experienced Italian. The beleaguered Eddie O’Sullivan has gone, replaced by the most successful Irish rugby coach ever. It’s as if everyone knows the next boss is going to be one of the most important appointments around.

All of which leaves us with one query: who’s taking over from Declan Kidney?

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