Comment: Same old story as Ireland fail to learn lessons

Familiar failings let Ireland down in Paris on Thursday night. 

DOWN AND OUT? Ireland players, from left, Aaron Connolly, Dara O'Shea, Josh Cullen and goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Death, taxes and Ireland conceding from long range or soon after half time.

On a night when Stephen Kenny’s heavy underdogs scrapped and endured, the same old flaws that have plagued the manager’s reign overwrote any argument that credit should be due.

The bottom line coming away from Paris with a result that will surprise no one, and a scoreline that flattered them, is that Sunday evening’s visit of the Netherlands to Dublin is now a must-win game to save the campaign and, surely, Kenny’s role as manager.

There were some crumbs of positivity, most notably the lively performance of Chiedozie Ogbene, but to concede from outside the box again and three minutes after the resumption once more are signs that this era is beyond redemption.

Excuses can be made around the absence of key names and the quality of opposition here. Yet this loss was ultimately the result of a failure to learn from past failures and find solutions to familiar weaknesses.

Equally, of course, it is fair to say France produced periods of quality that Ireland just do not have the ability to rival - epitomised by Aurelien Tchouameni’s beautiful opening goal.

It was a stunner, knitted perfectly into the far corner, and to expect Gavin Bazunu - or any goalkeeper - to have kept out such a sumptuous effort would be deluded. But it was also the exploitation of past misdemeanours and there was a clear plan for France to pepper the goal from long-range throughout.

Opponents know it has been one of Ireland’s blind spots under Kenny. This was their eleventh concession from outside the penalty area since the beginning of 2021. It is a problem that has seen an entire cast of characters fail to close down attempts quick enough and leave a goalkeeper, regardless of current struggles, so exposed.

Bazunu has been suffering a grim run of form at Southampton in the opening month of their Championship season, leading to increasingly noisy criticism from supporters that prompted his club manager Russell Martin to make an impassioned defence of his quality.

That talent should not be disputed but Bazunu is at the lowest ebb of his young career and looks short of confidence. Opponents know it and his team-mates must do too.

Yet the minimum that can be done is to offer protection from the most glaring weakness in his game.

There was little he could have done about Marcus Thuram’s 48th-minute effort too, coming from a move in which Antoine Griezmann helped to dislodge Ireland’s defenders from their positions with a diagonal run before playing to wing back Theo Hernandez. His cross to Kylian Mbappe led to a trio of white shirts diving in an attempt to block the strike but the ball came off John Egan and Thuram, with his World Cup-winning father Lillian watching from the stands, slotted home.

But this was a question of concentration, fuelling a growing sense that the team emerges from the interval lacking the same focus for reasons that only they know.

As for those crumbs of positivity: Adam Idah held the ball up well only to spurn his rare opportunities with the ball inside Les Blues’ box and Ogbene was the real standout as the direct nature of his sporadic dribbles forward caused France some concern throughout the first half.

Yet that is where it ended because the midfield behind them were too passive on the ball and as a unit found themselves overwhelmed by the luxurious talent of Tchouameni.

When it came to Ireland’s greatest threat - the simple but effective act of finding the heads of the big men from set pieces - opportunities were wasted.

There were overwrought moves such as the free kick a couple of minutes before Tchouameni’s opener when the ball was floated towards Shane Duffy on the opposite side of the box with the intention of him diverting it back to goal. The Derryman won his header but it was perplexing that he was not in a spot where he could try and direct it on target himself.

And then there were deliveries with the right intention but not executed well enough - such as Alan Browne’s whipped delivery from the right nearing half time. To not even execute a successful set piece against an opponent rattled by them in the reverse fixture was a dreary sight.

So the defeat everyone saw coming means Ireland must now go all-in on fashioning an unlikely repeat of 2001 against a Dutch team that was battered even more convincingly by France at the beginning of this campaign but has since made significant strides towards an expected second place.

Yet this toothless Ireland midfield does not have a Roy Keane to make a tone-setting tackle and finding a replica of Jason McAteer seems improbable. The post-mortems are being readied. Kenny is entering the last-chance saloon.