Martin O’Neill’s insists enthusiasm hasn’t faded ‘one jot’

By Liam Mackey

Martin O’Neill is hoping for some calm in Wrocklaw after the storm in Cardiff, the manager relieved that battered Ireland’s next outing, against Poland on Tuesday, is a friendly.

“I think with the players at our disposal, yeah, I’m kind of pleased with that,” he admitted.

“Next month there might be one or two fitter lads and I’m hoping one or two will be back but if not we will soldier on. But we need to improve, obviously. We can improve in just about every aspect.

“We should be able to learn a lot from Thursday’s game for a start. Despite the fact there were some super performances from some of the Welsh players, we have to look at ourselves too. Some of the goals we conceded were really avoidable and when we go and analyse the game and watch it through again, I’m hoping that we can pick up and iron out a few things that were fundamental.”

Unforced errors being one of them, according to the manager.

“Sometimes we have given the ball away unnecessarily and that causes problems. It’s hard enough when we have it to deal with it but we have given a couple of passes away. For Gareth Bale’s goal, Jeff Hendrick made a crossfield pass and that’s fine. Maybe he should have played it square but he’s tried the little pass through. Then the ball has come from an almost left-back position and they score within 10 or 15 seconds.

“We should do better all over the pitch to nullify that and certainly to stop Bale from coming onto his left foot, his favourite left foot, by getting a challenge in and knowing where he’s going, sending top class players down the way you want them to go, rather than the way they’re coming in.

“We know these things. It’s executing them. If you give away a pass, it shouldn’t be the end of the world but we didn’t deal with that.”

“One of the things when you don’t have the ball — and we didn’t have the ball greatly — we do have to close down in a pack, not just one or two of you and they play through you. It’s a case of all of us trying to close as much as we possibly can and not leave the back door open.”

Asked if the sight of 17-year-old Ethan Ampadu shining for Wales reinforced the importance of securing Declan Rice for Ireland, O’Neill replied: “Well, Roy was telling me, as I hadn’t realised, that he actually played with his (Ethan’s) father. Was it U21? But the young lad, from minute one, wanted to play for Wales. I think that was his thinking.”

O’Neill said that he would continue to try to unearth and blood new talent but added, “it’s difficult, it’s a challenge.”

Casting an ironic light on the situation was the fact that Ireland’s scorer on the night, Shaun Williams, was claiming his first senior goal for his country at the age of 31.

“I don’t know where he was in his 20s,” said O’Neill.

“When I came into the job he must have been 28, I don’t know. I think at that stage he was playing third division football, or Division 1 as it’s called, for Millwall.

“I think the players realise how difficult the tasks are and what international football is. It’s still a step up. Some of the lads playing Premier League maybe find it slightly easy, some lads playing in the Championship might find it tough going.”

As he adjusts his focus towards trying to pick up the pieces in Poland, O’Neill concedes that it would have been asking too much of Jon Walters, who turns 35 later this month, to go to the well so soon again. Walters, the FAI said, returned to Ipswich Town from the Irish training camp in Newport yesterday.

“He has played the one game for Ipswich and he played the other night and I think it would have been hard for him to participate in the game in a few days’ time,” said O’Neill.

“But in the intervening months, hopefully he will have more games for Ipswich and that will stand him in decent stead because Jon himself will say that he desperately needed the game and the one on Saturday, otherwise he might not have started in Cardiff. At this minute, with the lack of options we have there at centre-forward, we had to play him for the full 90 minutes.”

Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher took part in yesterday’s session in Newport after being invited by O’Neill to train with the squad for two days. The other players involved were either unused or came on as subs in the loss to Wales, while the rest of the squad underwent a recovery session in the team hotel. The squad will train again in Wales today before departing for Poland ahead of the friendly on Tuesday evening.

In the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s crushing defeat, O’Neill had said the experience had not diminished his renewed enthusiasm for the Irish job “one jot”.

Later, he added: “I’m not shell-shocked. I know what our lads can do and I think, regardless of whether they’ve played some football or not, regardless of whether they might get tired towards the end of the game, I think we know we can do it.”