Roy Keane knows better than most cost of failure

Whatever about Ireland’s decline to becoming an outlier of European football, comments by Roy Keane would have us believe it wasn’t avoidable.

The Ireland assistant was at his ebullient best during Thursday’s fundraiser for Barretstown, regaling the packed Olympia Theatre with tales of yesteryear, but it was his staunch defence of the reign he and Martin O’Neill are presiding over that caused most bafflement.

After six games of their first campaign with the dream ticket, Ireland sit fourth in Group D with nine points. Six of those were accrued against Georgia and Gibraltar.

Keane knows better than most football is a results business. That imperative means Ireland will have to beat either Germany or Poland in the final two games and pray Scotland slip up for even third place and a play-off route to France to be salvaged.

Managing only draws against their two main rivals for the second automatic berth to the Euros will represent the root of their failings should those planets not realign to create a rescue remedy.

Still, Keane backs O’Neill to the hilt, isolating him as the real deal amid a deluge of chancers operating on the front line of management.

“Martin O’Neill is a bloody good manager,” bellowed the Corkman.

“Football is full of bluffers who talk crap but he is a good man. He’s had success before and he will do it again. Just give him a chance. We’re nearly a decent team.”

Decent rather than special is a term that could easily apply to Poland and Scotland too. Keane cited the abundance of Championship players in the Ireland team as reflective of their standing.

Yet, the team O’Neill put out against the Scots a fortnight ago featured eight players who had sampled the Premier League in the season just gone.

Scotland’s line-up, by comparison, showed half that number.

Poland, Robert Lewandowski aside, have soared to the group’s summit backboned by a coterie of home-based players. One of their regulars, Krzysztof Maczynski, plays his club football in China.

“There was nothing between the teams on the day,” reasoned Keane about the Scotland draw. “We played well but sometimes you need that bit of luck.”

A school of thought would suggest Ireland’s luck ran out in Glasgow last November.

Late goals in Tbilisi and Gelsenkirchen during the Autumn offered O’Neill and Keane a springboard for their qualification tilt to surge but the gearstick has been jammed in reverse since.

If the measure of a manager is the value he derives from the players at his disposal, then the assessment on the contribution of Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy is damning.

The degree to which the Everton pair have struggled to replicate their club form under the present management is disconcerting.

Their strides at Goodison Park over the past two seasons have been such that each are regularly linked with transfers to the top Premier League clubs.

McCarthy, in particular, has been guilty of underperforming. Indeed, when the onus was on the midfielder to dominate against Poland and Scotland, he got involved in incidents that might have seen him sent off in both matches.

“Will we qualify? Please God,” said Keane of Ireland’s predicament. “We’ll do our best and that’s all we can do.

“All these ifs and ands? If we don’t qualify would the FAI keep us? Big question mark? Will Martin want to stay on? Big question mark.”

Given FAI chief executive John Delaney last July gave Ireland’s latest saviours an 80% chance of qualifying for the expanded Euros, a pragmatist like Keane knows the consequences that failure will inevitably bring.