Learning lessons of Thomond downer

NICE TRIP, shame about the match. This week’s roadshow through Tipperary, Limerick and Carlow might have ticked plenty of good PR boxes for the FAI, even if this sort of thing tends to cut little ice with the media.

However, there was no doubting the genuine warmth of the welcome afforded the Irish management and squad at its impressive training base at St Michael’s football club in Tipperary town, where thousands of locals availed of the rare chance to see the boys in green in the flesh outside Dublin. Similarly, at the Institute of Technology in Carlow on Thursday, Giovanni Trapattoni once again charmed his audience while Packie Bonner spoke eloquently about the long-term value of the BA In Sports and Exercise in Soccer which was being unveiled on the day.

The only problem with all this is that what was supposed to be the highlight of the week actually turned out to be its lowest point. Ireland versus Australia was billed as both a full scale dress-rehearsal for the World Cup test to come and a historic night for international football away from the capital — but the event conspicuously failed to deliver on both counts.

At least the solution to the latter problem seems obvious, with the FAI moving quickly to re-price its tickets for the game against South Africa at the same venue next month. Despite truly dire predictions, the attendance of 19,400 on Wednesday was decent enough but, to fill the famous ground to its capacity of 26,500 in these straitened times, the FAI will need to produce rather more accessible ticketing options when they unveil their plans next week.

It would also help, needless to say, were the Irish team to fly back into Shannon Airport a couple of days before the South Africa friendly carrying three precious World Cup qualification points from their long haul to Nicosia. But, after Wednesday, that too seems an even taller order than we might previously have thought.

It might not be wise to read too much into any friendly game but the conspiracy theorists and students of history weren’t slow about drawing some ominous parallels in the aftermath of Wednesday’s 0-3 defeat. You might recall, for example, that the last time Ireland suffered so badly in a friendly was when Steve Staunton’s men were thumped 4-0 by Holland at Lansdowne Road. And we all know what happened when, in due course, they came up against Cyprus away in the European Championships. And if that’s not enough to have you chewing your fingernails, recall too that going into that infamous night in Nicosia, the Cypriots themselves were smarting from a 6-1 thrashing by Slovakia. And what happened in faraway Tirana on Wednesday? Cyprus were walloped 6-1 by Albania. (Pause for snatch of theme music from ‘The Twilight Zone’).

But even if Giovanni Trapattoni, like Jack Charlton before him, might be inclined to downplay Wednesday’s reversal as just one of those bad nights at the office, that is not to say that he won’t be taking the relevant lessons of the defeat on board.

Indeed, he said as much as early as the morning after, informing the press in Carlow that the experience had clarified his thinking on the strongest 11 he can put out next month in Nicosia.

TO JUDGE by his positive assessment of the Preston man’s outing, Trapattoni is content for Sean St Ledger to retain his place in the centre of defence alongside Richard Dunne, although the manager did also add that John O’Shea is always available for selection in that position. The latter option, however, would probably only arise if Steve Finnan was to come back into the reckoning after a long time out. And even if the former Liverpool man did manage to gain the requisite match sharpness in time, O’Shea could still be moved to left back to accommodate him, leaving the Dunne-St Ledger axis intact.

More boldly, there is also the radical but seemingly real prospect of Kevin Kilbane giving way to Eddie Nolan in the left-back role — the manager having already shown, with his promotion of Nolan’s Preston colleague St Ledger, that he is not afraid to pitch a new boy into a crunch qualifier.

But if the door might be about to open for one newcomer, it seems that another much-touted prospect, Darron Gibson, didn’t seize his opportunity on Wednesday to leapfrog Keith Andrews. Again, the manager was not about to single out any individual for criticism but you didn’t need to do too much reading between the lines to find the significance in his remark that “Andrews and (Glenn) Whelan have the habit of playing together.”

Whether Trapattoni will opt for either Stephen Hunt or Aiden McGeady to start in Nicosia is open to debate, but, even though Damien Duff had a low-key showing against Australia, the manager’s observation that, along with other marquee names, he just needs more game time to get up to speed, suggests the Newcastle man’s position on the other flank is secure.

Fitness permitting, the rest of the side, as they say, picks itself, with only concerns about Kevin Doyle’s latest injury setback raising questions about the choice of strikers.

But arguably the biggest lesson from Thomond is that those same main men need to be absolutely on their game if Ireland are to maintain their upwardly mobile progression in World Cup Group 8. Irish football isn’t so blessed with an abundance of stellar talent that the side can afford to carry even one or two below-par performances in the critical matches. And, encouragingly for the trip to Cyprus, the evidence of fine performances in Bari and Sofia suggests that it’s precisely when all the players are playing to their utmost capabilities that Ireland can carve out the big results.

While only the events of the night of September 5 will tell us for sure if Thomond was a bad blip or something worse, you’d like to believe it’s preferable that the lacklustre outings are reserved for the games where there are no points at stake — even if, understandably, the good people of Limerick might not wholly agree.