Dunphy leads backlash

Enough’s enough for Eamo but Brady won’t abandon Trap’s ship just yet

What came at the final whistle was as inevitable as Marco Reus’s opener. An onslaught comparable with what Germany inflicted on us for most of the night.

This time it was Eamon Dunphy dominating possession.

“It was horrible. It was abysmal. It raises the fundamental question about Trap and his era. It was a shocking, spiritless performance.

“For real football people, for anyone who’s Irish, it is a cause of real sorrow. This isn’t Ireland. This isn’t us.”

A shattered John O’Shea told Tony O’Donoghue: “There’s a way to lose a match.” This, everyone could agree, wasn’t it.

Dunphy was on the ball again. “It’s a culmination of the way the manager has approached the job, not going to games in England, not applying himself, not doing the job properly. We can’t defend that. His tactics are sterile. He’s been negligent. I think the players are sacrificial lambs.”

Liam Brady, who, you suspect, might have to be pushed overboard to entirely abandon this sinking Italian vessel, had only one lifeboat left; can we afford Trapattoni’s compensation? “It depends on what the FAI wants to do. After what’s happened in the Euros and tonight, most managers would expect to lose their jobs.”

Billo was of the belief that, if Trap stays, the hole on the other side of the ledger might eventually grow just as wide.

“Nobody is going to come to matches to watch this kind of rubbish.”

The price on his head, mind you, would be the least of Trap’s worries if Eamo was manning the guillotine.

“Watching games; you can’t subcontract that work to Frank Stapleton and Mick Martin. That is a capital offence.”

Ronnie Whelan called it the worst he’d seen in his lifetime and Gilesy was prepared to match that verdict and up it a couple of decades.

“Depressing Bill. I think what’s happened is a continuation of the decline in morale. It was one of the worst performances I’ve ever seen, going back to the bad old days.”

On a night of interminable German passing movements, Eamo had begun his own build-up at half time.

“I’ve seen a billion bad teams Bill. When you see a bad team, a relegation team, a team that’s down on its luck; morale is low, everyone is looking to hide. This has been coming.”

“Vorsprung durch possession,” George Hamilton had called this eye-catching brand of German advancement. You couldn’t help wonder what corporate slogan we could have refitted on our own efforts. “Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux” mightn’t have needed much tweaking.

Worst of all, after how badly we’ve let them down lately, it seems we were again disappointing our triumphant conquerors.

“I expected a bit more from the Irish team,” signed Didi Hamann, his eyebrows strangely passive.

Moments of levity on a grim night? It took less than five minutes for the first Muller-Reus link-up, inevitably near a corner. There was also the suggestion, from Ronnie Whelan, about 20 minutes in, that Germany were “starting to work out how Ireland play”. As though packing our defensive third and launching and saying Hail Marys had been the Third secret of Fatima.

There was also a frisson of sexual disappointment in the studio beforehand when Dunphy implored the Irish team not to be frigid on the night.

“Is frigidity a word?” wondered Billo. “There is a word called frigidity Bill. I can assure you.”

“I hope you’re talking football,” replied Bill.

Thankfully he was. And so frigid did we prove on this bleak night, Eamo was even prepared to douse the burning embers of one of his own great passions of the past; loathing for the man he once called a congenital loser.

“I wouldn’t mind Mick McCarthy coming back. I wasn’t his greatest fan. But I hold my hands up now. We have to do something.”

“Where do we go from here?” Ronnie had wondered. To the Faroes, seemingly, and was that Brady clambering back on board en route to Torshavn.

“The man is a real professional. He will do his very best to go to the Faroes and put three points on the board.”

Dunphy certainly wouldn’t be back on deck.

“All the mistakes catch up with you in football. It’s not like being a banker. You pay the price.”

Good of the Germans to remind us of that again.