Ireland ready to get down to business
The mood, just ahead of the team’s training session in this evening’s venue, was business-like.
But one suspects the Irish attitude will need to be something rather more than that when the real business gets going here tonight at 8.30pm Irish time.
After all, the long build-up to this final game of the season has been anything but routine, the complications evident in a starting line-up which goes into battle minus the 3D effect — Duff, Dunne and Doyle — and with a handful of players either not long back from injury or else getting a rare taste of competitive action after fallow times at their clubs.
Then there’s the fact that Trapattoni has chosen to overlook the tried and tested Shane Long in favour of blooding the twice-capped Simon Cox in competitive battle as a partner for Robbie Keane.
And, of course, Keane himself was being accounted a significant doubt as recently as the day before yesterday, having strained a groin in training back in Dublin. The management monitored him carefully in last night’s training session and will seek even more reassurance from him in the hours leading up to kick-off but, as far as the skipper is concerned, he’ll be fit and rearing to go tonight.
“I actually did it on Wednesday (the day before the team left Dublin),” he explained. “I was doing a bit of shooting practice after training and I felt my groin a small bit. Then I trained again on Thursday morning and it was gradually getting worse. But I’ve had treatment since it happened and it feels a lot better now.
“I think I’ll be okay. Look, I haven’t been 100% since I was about 17 (laughs) with various niggles and then these injuries the last few months but I’ve carried on through that. A little groin strain is not going to stop me now. Will I take a painkiller? If required. It’s not an injury that is going to put me out for months and months. It’s muscular. I’ll see how it is, obviously but, rest assured, I’ll be on that pitch.”
Keane accepted Long would be disappointed at being replaced as his striker partner by Cox but admitted to being hugely impressed by the West Brom man in last week’s Carling Nations Cup games.
“You can see what he can offer,” he said. “He’s done very, very well, especially against Scotland. He’s a little bit different to me but, in another way, he’s quite similar. He likes to drop off too and it’s important that one of us, at certain stages in the game, can do that. It’s a difficult thing to do on your own for 90 minutes so we will be able to chop and change.”
Keane also indicated that, both being on the smaller side, he and Cox will be looking to have balls played into feet as much as possible and suggested that his partner’s quicksilver instincts could see him prosper with the right service.
“We’ll probably have to get it into feet rather than have them chipping the balls into us,” he said.
“We’ll have to get the ball down and play, and get it behind them. And Simon is very sharp. He likes to hang around the box, and in training he scores a lot of goals. He plays on the shoulder sometimes too.
“So he can mix it and I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve seen so far.”
And what about the psychological challenge of making a competitive debut in a crunch away Euro qualifier?
“It won’t faze him,” insisted Keane. “He’s come in to the squad for the first time and he’s settled in straight away. He gave us a good song as well” — a traditional initiation rite — “which always helps (laughs). He’s a confident chap.” For his part, Trapattoni would echo all those sentiments but it emerged that another reason he has opted for Cox over Long, at least as a starter tonight, is because he feels the latter is drained from a long season as well as the fresh emotional blow of Reading’s failure to win their promotion play off against Swansea.
Said the manager: “I made the decision because Shane plays many games and I thought that it’s necessary for him to recover his strength. But also because I saw he was a little bit disappointed after the play-off.
“They’re different players, Cox and Long, but both can play well with Robbie. And we will be watching closely to see if Shane needs to come on, say maybe with 15 minutes to go. Because he is the type of player who can make a quick impact.”
Concern over Sean St Ledger aggravating a knee injury is one of the reasons why Trapattoni says he is happy to have Darren O’Dea — fully recovered from his own ankle worries, according to the manager — in the centre of his defence tonight, alongside John O’Shea. He also seems to have a special affection for a no-nonsense type of stopper.
“The defender is defender,” was the inimitable observation. “But O’Dea can play also. He’s not an idiot. He can play football. I don’t understand why he hasn’t been playing in Scotland for Celtic.”
Trapattoni only once put his foot wrong yesterday, explaining that one of the reasons he’d chosen Stephen Kelly for right-back was because Macedonia might employ the speedy Bajram Fetai on the left side of their attack — only to be told by the local interpreter that the Lyngby man was a late withdrawal through injury.
Trapattoni took the news in his stride, going on to say that he had other reasons — including Kelly’s own pace and experience and the fact that, if needs be, he can switch positions with John O’Shea — for choosing ahead of Paul McShane and Kevin Foley a player who has long been overlooked at Fulham.
With Aiden McGeady on one flank, tonight will also be a big opportunity for Stephen Hunt to reaffirm his claim to a starting place on the other wing, the Wolves’ man’s form and freshness after his own injury battle a real boost for Trapattoni in the depressing absence of Damien Duff.
“Against Scotland, Hunt not only played well but demonstrated that he is full of fresh energy,” grinned the manager. “He was like a dog!”
If Ireland can walk the walk tonight half as well as they have been talking the talk these past few days, then three points becomes an achievable target.
However, my own instinct is that, by the end of what might prove a torrid 90 minutes in every sense, Ireland could be expressing gratitude at leaving here in the wee, wee hours with just the one.
Not that Trapattoni would agree.
When a journalist yesterday misquoted him as having said earlier this week that he would settle for a draw, the manager shot back: “You no listen to me! I don’t know, maybe Marco said that but not me (laughter). I am diplomatic to managers because I have respect for the opponent but when I go on the pitch my aim all my life has only been to win.”
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