A positive thread

[OneRedArmy]

Best away performance since......?

Its done. Absolutely gut-wrenching, but no point whinging about Terry Henry, so lets accentuate the positive.

Lots of great performances and some bloody neat football.

A lot to be proud of.

[tommy_c12000]

Best away performance since......?

Its done. Absolutely gut-wrenching, but no point whinging about Terry Henry, so lets accentuate the positive.

Lots of great performances and some bloody neat football.

A lot to be proud of.

Will it improve our seeding from the 3rd pot at all?

[Murfinator]

We technically beat a top side away from home today, first time in a long, long time we've done that.

[stiffler]

Best performance I have ever seen of an Ireland team.

Maith Thu Trappa & the boys

[Crosby87]

Best away performance since......?

Its done. Absolutely gut-wrenching, but no point whinging about Terry Henry, so lets accentuate the positive.

Lots of great performances and some bloody neat football.

A lot to be proud of.

Problem is the complexion of the team is going to change so its hard to say it will matter moving forward.
Duffs tears say it all.

[SkStu]

im gutted but so so proud of Trappatoni and his team tonight.

Bring a couple of players through and we'll do alright.

Horrible way to lose out.

[DotTV]

Problem is the complexion of the team is going to change so its hard to say it will matter moving forward.
Duffs tears say it all.

Don't think it will change too much for the Euro's. All those players except maybe Kilbane will be around for another two years. Huge improvement this campaign and massive performance tonight.
We have played the World Cup champs and runners up four times and over 90 minutes have won one, drawn two and lost one. The loss came from a deflected goal. A lot to be proud of and a lot to build on and a few more players still to join that squad.

[soccerboy]

we have come a long way since the away defeat to cyprus,so proud of the lads tonight,proved they could get the ball down and play,brilliant team performance,ruined my a moment of madness!!

[boovidge]

I was proud of the players today. They gave their all, it was a brilliant performance. Can't ask more than that.

[Billsthoughts]

Great performance. Deserved to go to WC.

[Duggie]

i feel sick but like you all what can we do. nothing thats the annoying thing. i dont blame henry, if it happened the other end we would all take it. blame the officials.

im so proud of the boys, died out there on the field for us. we couldnt ask any more of them. no other country has the bond between players and supporters that we have. will make qualyfying for the euro's all the sweeter. we hope..

[drummerboy]

On a positive note I think we have discovered a decent centre half in Sean St Ledger.
We need a few more players to come through now.
Stephen Ward seems to be the only natural left full coming through at the moment. Think Eddie Nolan is more a right full, where we also have Foley.

Other players who need to be blooded are McCann of Burnley, Garvan, despite his omission by Keane at Ipswich; Fahey at Brimingham.

[pineapple stu]

We'd probably have lost on penalties. :)

[mooret]

Does last night constitute a win for Ireland of 1-0 (regualr time)? Just wondering does this remove this awful statistic of not beating a higher seeded team since Holland 2001

[lionelhutz]

We'd probably have lost on penalties. :)

I'm trying to convince myself of that too

[John83]

Does last night constitute a win for Ireland of 1-0 (regualr time)? Just wondering does this remove this awful statistic of not beating a higher seeded team since Holland 2001
I think it goes down as a draw for ranking purposes.

[colster]

It was a great performance. The best I've seen in a long long time from an Irish team.
There were so many great performances from Dunne, Duff and Keane but I think the likes of Andrews, Lawrence and St Ledger deserve special mention. These 3 lads have barely 30 caps between them. St Ledger has never played in the Premiership never mind the Champions League yet invariably it was him that through his body in front or every shot, Lawrence never lost the ball, played with intelligence and some incisive passing, Andrews hassled and harried all night. The performances they put in last night were just brilliant.

[Two Touch]

I know this thread has the best of intentions but i am absolutely distraught today. I can't even be bothered to talk to co-workers about the game. This will take a while to get-over. Sorry for bringing the tone of the thread down.

Carry-on.

[endabob1]

It was a great performance. The best I've seen in a long long time from an Irish team.
There were so many great performances from Dunne, Duff and Keane but I think the likes of Andrews, Lawrence and St Ledger deserve special mention. These 3 lads have barely 30 caps between them. St Ledger has never played in the Premiership never mind the Champions League yet invariably it was him that through his body in front or every shot, Lawrence never lost the ball, played with intelligence and some incisive passing, Andrews hassled and harried all night. The performances they put in last night were just brilliant.

That's the big plus, the unheralded players put their hands up last night, reminded me of Holland & Kinsella in post-Saipan 2002.

I hope Duff stays on and I hope some young blood gets added and maybe with a more fortunate draw we might be looking to 2012

Two Touch, I know just how you feel.

[drummerboy]

What happened could galvanise the players even more, making them all the more determined during the Euro Championship.

[geysir]

We'd probably have lost on penalties. :)
A losers survivalist psychology, even with the smiley.

At the time I fancied our chances in a possible penalty shoot out.
Even going to penalties would have been a very fortunate result for France.
In ET I was looking forward to see us banging in the penalties one after the other.

[passinginterest]

A losers survivalist psychology, even with the smiley.

At the time I fancied our chances in a possible penalty shoot out.
Even going to penalties would have been a very fortunate result for France.
In ET I was looking forward to see us banging in the penalties one after the other.

I've also been consoling myself with the we'd never have won on penalties theory. Llloris was in fabulous form and Given has a poor record at saving penos.

As this is the positive thread I think a generation of players have just learned that no matter what the media say, or the club you play for would suggest, they can compete with and beat the best teams in the world. It's something that they should really carry into the Euro qualifiers.

I think Glenn Whelan deserved special mention, he was immense and I thought we lost it when he went off injured. He carried Andrews through the first half hour and never gave a single ball away, Andrews improved as the game went on but never used the ball as well as Whelan. Overall though all the players surpassed themselves for most of the two legs.

[SilkCut]

Liking this thread, we could have won, we should have won but we didn't. What we did do was show the so called stronger teams that we can live with anyone even without some of our better players (Finnan, S. Reid, A. Reid). Should we play like that in the Euro qualifiers (Especially with some of the players coming through) we will walk any group we are in. The players must remember how they feel this morning and promise themselves that that won't happen to them again. I hope we get to play France again in the near future and absolutely hammer them. In the meantime lets leave it to our rugby boys to teach them a lesson in the 6 nations. Its a sad sad day but a bright bright future.

[cestlavie]

Gutted but very proud of the boys. The first touch by Henry, you could
almost understand as it is an instinctive thing to do but the second
was pure criminal. Here's to the future, The boys in green are back.
All we need to do now is build a stronger panel. We need to believe in
ourselves more. We should be in South Africa, and perhaps if we had of
went for it more in Montenegro+Bulgaria and wee bit more luck here and
there, we would be, Cestlavie! Bring on the Euro's

[Yard of Pace]

Trying to focus on positives throughout the day. Right now it's that I'm in love with Sledge and Glenn Whelan. So much passion and showed they have the ability to play like Gods when playing for Ireland. I feel for the oppositon who will be facing guys like that in the next campaign. To paraphrase Tom Ryan, they'll walk all over the c***s.

Anyone able to read Sledge's twitter?
http://twitter.com/dipset12

[SwanVsDalton]

Magnificent performance - possibly the best Irish performance I've ever seen. I'm as proud as I am sickened.

But we've proven what we're made of and got some monkeys off the back. Time to do it consistently. We played France off the park in Paris, and deserved to win over the two legs. But it's over - time to face a new challenge with the confidence that we deserve to be competing at major championships. We're good enough, now prove it consistently.

Well done Trap and the lads. :ball:

[Yard of Pace]

Lawro says:
"What was apparent for this magnificent Irish performance is anything can be achieved in football, against any opposition, with hard work and belief."

I was SO sick of the "we don't have the players. We're rubbish" brigade. Hopefully last night will shut them up.

[ger121]

We'd probably have lost on penalties. :)


Surprised nobody else has mentioned that today. With the way their keeper was playing he was bound to save a couple. I had visions of the shoot-out against Spain all over again...

[MariborKev]

Positives? Amongst the best I have seen watching us home and away.

The talk was of going there and creating a chance, we went there and created any number of chances.

Still too numb to watch the replay though.