Irish win will frighten Italy, says Tardelli

SOMEONE should start compiling the new Irish football thesaurus.

First, it was Giovanni Trapattoni comparing Richard Dunne to “a wardrobe”. Then the manager likened Stephen Ireland to “a hedgehog”. And now Marco Tardelli has described Robbie Keane as “a good woman.”

To be fair to the linguistic skills of Ireland’s assistant manager, he quickly corrected himself and, amid fits of laughter, reassigned the correct gender to Ireland’s captain. But, as he spoke pitch side following training in Malahide yesterday, there was no mistaking the serious thrust of Tardelli’s thinking going into the vital World Cup qualifier against Cyprus on Saturday.