Heimir Hallgrímsson: 'It just kills a game if they want to destroy the game for us, then so be it'

Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgrímsson removes tennis balls that were thrown onto the pitch. Pic: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

Heimir Hallgrímsson hopes another fan protest doesn’t ‘destroy’ Ireland’s scheduled Uefa Nations League fixture against Israel on October 5 at Lansdowne Road.

Heightened tensions around the FAI’s determination to fulfil the fixtures despite the public outcry against a nation accused of genocide spilled into the 1-0 win over Qatar.

A grassroots coalition of League of Ireland fans disrupted the friendly by flinging tennis balls onto the pitch on three separate occasions during the first half.

“Everybody has a right to protest,” said the Ireland manager.

“It just kills a game if they want to destroy the game for us, then so be it, obviously, it’s not fun to see, especially for us who are trying to think about the football side.” 

The Icelander’s displeasure at Uefa and Fifa treating Israel differently to banned Russia has been on the record since last year but the Irish Government and the FAI, under fear of sanctions from Uefa, are adamant they won’t boycott the matches.

On the footballing side, he was pleased with the victory secured by an early header from captain Nathan Collins, albeit disappointed for Jack Moylan at what he deemed an incorrect red card on the stroke of half-time.

Well, tactically happy. First half, I thought we were brilliant in our pressing, in our positioning, how we closed them from building up, even from goal-kicks.

“When we won it, we could have probably done with a little bit more ball speed in our play, but position-wise, we got into good positions and we need to learn to be more ruthless when we have superiority like we had in the first half.

“That’s something we can learn from this game, but Qatar is higher than us in the Fifa rankings; they qualified for the World Cup – I hope they do well there – so to beat them here, keep a clean sheet playing half the game one man down is really pleasing for me.

“It was not the most beautiful game we’ve played and a friendly in off-season is always tricky, but what we need to be thankful for is the focus ;level of the players.

“They never lost focus or switched off during a game like this. Normally in games like this, some players switch off, but you didn’t see that in any player on the pitch for us and that is brilliant, absolutely brilliant.” 

He added on Moylan: “I thought it was just a wrong decision and a mistake from the referee. We all make mistakes, but it was costly for Jack Moylan having played really well in the first half, leading the pressure on our left side.

“They tried so much to go up on the right side, but we locked them in. Scalesy, Molumby and Troy, so I was really pleased.

“He’s a really good set-play taker as well, so it was a big loss for us, but we opted to go with a back five still and a three in front of them.

“It was a tough shift for Seamie and for Scalesy to do the up and down run the whole game, but they did it perfectly, so we were happy. Tactically, the second half was good, we were disciplined, we weren’t chasing them all over.

“We were disciplined, focused and jumped when we needed to jump gave them certain areas and they didn’t use them, so it was a good display.

“It was a good test playing with 10 men. If this happens again, we at least have done it once and done it well.”