Hit or Miss?

As the dust settles on Ireland’s European championship flop Miguel Delaney looks at the successes and failures in Poland and where Giovanni Trapattoni can go from here.

Irish Hits

Keith Andrews: The single moment of frustration and anger at the end of the tournament shouldn’t overshadow the many more moments of fine play and effort. Andrews was Ireland’s best performer over the three games by some distance. Really, he was the only player who applied the spirit of Paris, regularly performing at optimum level. That, in effect, ensured that he was able to almost play two positions at once and, as such, wasn’t as overrun as his midfield partner Glenn Whelan. A classic example came in the first half of the Croatia game. In one minute, Andrews was trying to push things on by driving play forward. In the next, he was successfully hounding Luka Modric.