Ireland punished at the back again but Halgrimsson has major issues further up

PUNISHED AGAIN: Nathan Collins reacts at the final whistle. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Some games amble and drag their feet through the opening minutes, any semblance of shape or plot absent as players and teams come to terms with the state of play. International football can be especially slow to find its feet.

Not here. This Nations League B tie was no more than five minutes old by the time Greece and the Republic of Ireland had signed the terms of engagement. There would be no bedding-in period. Neither of them displayed any interest in it.

Ireland barrelled into the Greeks from the off, pressing high and often. The ease with which Greece played through and around that in the initial exchanges was ominous, but then a high offensive push discommoded the hosts and Evan Ferguson almost had the first goal.

That Ferguson didn’t earn a penalty seemed harsh, and it was a cushion they would have dearly loved as they struggled and failed to get to grips with an opponent that is ranked just 48th in the world but played at times like they were on a different planet.

Heimir Halgrimsson had predicted that his team would need to defend and, man, he was right. Greece had ten shots and 83% possession through the first quarter. They would have had a few goals with it only for Caoimhin Kelleher and some last-ditch defending.

Ireland’s shape was decent for much of this. They settled into a 4-4-2 without the ball but still found white shirts zipping balls through the lines and in between the cracks between the full-backs and central defenders and between the back four and midfield.

There were crosses whipped in from left and from right to go with it and signs of Ireland fraying slightly at the seams as Greece worked their way into space. Not least when a flat-footed Chiedozie Ogbene lost Dimitris Gioannoulis whose shot was saved.

The Irish Examiner headline when Ireland won 2-1 in the Finnish capital last Thursday read ‘To Hel and Back’. Here they were in a hotter and stickier Hellas. It was something of a miracle that they didn’t concede in that first 35 minutes.

If the backs-to-the-wall stuff was spirited then they weren’t doing themselves many favours on the rare occasions they had the ball. Time and again Ireland failed to make it stick up front, regardless of whether it was delivered on the floor or in the air.

You could imagine those further back cursing under their breath.

The last ten minutes of the first-half saw the siege lift slightly but the Greeks, looking to end an emotional week where they gained three points at Wembley but lost teammate George Baldock to a tragic accident, ended the half with over 200 passes more played.

That their opening goal came minutes after the break, and from a shot outside the Irish box, seemed particularly pointed given the frequency of such concessions from the same areas and in the same time frames under Stephen Kenny.

Actually, was this game at that point all that different to those Ireland had lost under the previous manager? Halgrimsson isn’t trying to play the beautiful game with Ireland but he had talked up an attacking XI that could pose a threat up front.

They had tested the Greeks in the first-half of the game in Dublin last week and finally started to do something similar here when, in time-honoured fashion, our Boys in Green were stirred belatedly by the concession of a goal.

As in Helsinki, Halgrimsson looked to the bench to get some purchase on things and, coincidence or not, the addition of an extra midfielder in the form of Jack Taylor, made more or less immediate gains against a tiring host team.

Taylor could have had a goal on his senior debut with a header tipped over for a corner, and again with two swipes at another setpiece, but an equalizer and a draw would have been reward beyond their heightened investment in the Greek half.

The concession of that soft second goal, on the back of a mistake by the otherwise excellent Kelleher, will concentrate minds on issues closer to their own goal but attack remains the best form of defence and Ireland have a long, long way to go in that.