Relief the main emotion as conservative tactics nearly backfire

ASK your average football fan to pinpoint the day Brian Kerr lost his grip on the Ireland job and more than a few would point to the loss of a two-goal lead to Israel at Lansdowne Road in June of 2005.

The home side was dominant for the first 25 minutes of that World Cup qualifier and were full value for their 2-0 lead courtesy of Ian Harte and Robbie Keane. Their mistake was to switch into neutral after the second.

Any of this beginning to sound familiar? It’s worth lingering on the lessons of Kerr’s tenure for just a moment here. When it came to an end in October of ’05 the post-mortem contained damning accusations of conservatism that were impossible to deny. On Saturday we were again witness to an Irish team lording it over an ordinary side on home turf only to pull up and allow the opposition back into the contest. If Keiren Westwood hadn’t made that second-half save the scoreline may have even been the same. It should never have come to that.