Same story... different ending

IT WAS a faintly eerie feeling to sit high up in the press box before kick-off in the GSP Stadium on Saturday night and take in a scene which suggested time had stood still.

As was the case three years ago, this was a competitive international football match played out in front of a vast expanse of empty seats, with most of what passed for atmosphere being generated by the travelling support. Far off to the north, carved into the face of the mountain range which provides a dramatic backdrop to the divided Cypriot capital, the huge illuminated Turkish flag still flashed its proud and provocative message into the inky blankness. And, closer to our bird’s nest vantage point, the traffic on the busy motorway beside the stadium continued to roll by, seemingly indifferent to the sporting contest taking place a hundred yards away. In short, same as it ever was on Ireland’s all too frequent trips to the eastern Mediterranean island.

And, as it turned out on yet another squeaky bum night for the Irish in Nicosia, same as it ever was on the pitch too – right up until the welcome reprieve of Robbie Keane’s late winning goal.

That Ireland had started the game brightly should, given past experience, have immediately set alarm bells ringing. After all, Stephen Elliot had given the visitors a sixth minute lead in 2005, only for Brian Kerr’s team to spend the remaining 84 minutes clinging on by the skin of their teeth. And, one year later, Stephen Ireland put the Irish in front on eight minutes – and, well, I don’t think you need any reminding of the horror show which unfolded after that.

So when a real poacher’s goal from Kevin Doyle broke the deadlock after just six minutes on Saturday night we should probably have known what was to come – a quick Cypriot response which saw Shay Given magnificently keep out a goal-bound Ionannis Okkas header before, just a little over 20 minutes later, the keeper was left helpless by Marios Ilea’s drilled equaliser to the bottom corner of the net.

But, in truth, this was worse than just a repeat of Ireland’s old inability to protect, let alone build on, an early advantage – the whole first half performance by the visitors was like an atavistic throwback to the worst of the long-ball game under Jack Charlton, with the full-backs and Shay Given repeatedly booting it up the pitch in the vain hope that Robbie Keane might get on the end of a Kevin Doyle flick-on.

And with Keith Andrews and Glenn Whelan dropping deep – as they invariably do under Giovanni Trapattoni’s protective screening system – Constantinos Charalambidis was afforded all the time and space he needed to control the midfield exchanges while, also seeing plenty of the ball, danger man Efstathios Aloneftis revelled in proving a thorn in the side of John O’Shea on the left flank.

But not only were Cyprus playing all the fluent passing football, they also rattled the Irish with a committed pressing game in all areas of the pitch. The result was that service to Ireland’s attacking players was virtually negligible and, although the home side were scarcely peppering the Irish goal, Cyprus went into the break firmly in the ascendancy and looking far the more likely to go on and win the game.

That they didn’t was down to a better, more disciplined Irish performance in the second half and perhaps also a growing fatigue on the part of the home side. Mind, it still took Ireland another half an hour to produce something more coherent and consistent than their earlier spasmodic attacks which, as often as not, were prompted by individuals like Damien Duff and Kevin Doyle essentially playing off the cuff.

Most encouragingly, it was when Ireland finally abandoned the impoverished route one approach and began moving the ball around with poise and purpose, that they began to look like they could take retrieve the situation. And, it can hardly have been a coincidence that, when the winning goal finally did arrive, it came at the end of what was probably Ireland’s most accomplished passing move of the whole game, one in which the direction of the attack was changed to drag their tiring opponents out of position, while both Andrews and Whelan were finally advanced enough to play a modestly creative part in final third of the pitch.

And that the killer blow was delivered by Keane from a Duff cross was proof that the most experienced heads in the Irish team – Given being another – are still the ones who matter the most when the chips are down.

Apart from the impact of the three points on the Group 8 table – and the players will be quick to tell you that that’s all that really matters – the good news to come out of Nicosia was that, in stark contrast to previous visits, Ireland managed not only to salvage a bad situation but to finish the game as demonstrably the stronger side – one reliable barometer of which is that Given hardly had a save to make in the whole of the second half. You also suspect that it must be Trapattoni’s influence which meant that this hitherto psychologically brittle group of players did not succumb to panic as time ran out.

The negative is that, under Trapattoni’s rigid system and selection policy, Ireland’s essentially defensive posture means they are never likely to put anyone to the sword. But the positive is that his disciplined organisational approach continues to see an honest, hard-working team pick up precious away draws and wins of a kind which, in similar circumstances in the recent past, they would almost certainly have squandered. The process might still be uncomfortably and even unnecessarily nerve-wracking but – as the unbeaten competitive record shows – somehow the manager continues to get his charges over the line when and where it counts.

They say in football that playing badly and winning is a sign of champions. After Nicosia then, perhaps we should already be thinking of Ireland as favourites to win the World Cup. Quite, but we have to get there first. And if Ireland play as poorly against Italy next month as they did in the first half against Cyprus then – perish the thought – it could be Croke Park not the GSP Stadium, which turns out to be the graveyard for the team’s still vibrant World Cup ambitions.

CYPRUS: Avgousti, Ilia, Charalambous, Christou, Avraam , Charalambides, Satsias, Michail (Alexandrou 72), Nikolaou, Aloneftis, Okkas.

IRELAND: Given, O’ Shea , St Ledger, Dunne, Kilbane, Hunt (McGeady 67), Whelan , Andrews, Duff, Doyle (Folan 75), Keane.

Referee: Thomas Einwaller (Austria).