Stephen Kenny

[Stuttgart88]

Yeah I remember John Egan Senior very well!

But what was your main point? That you were maybe a more effective GAA player despite being more talented at football? Did playing both make you better at either?

[liamoo11]

I've always been a bit sceptical of this "competing sports" argument. I've heard it said you need x hours a week of contact with a ball etc to develop to the standard required and our players aren't getting that. I've heard that early specialisation is key but equally I've heard that playing other sports is key. Which is it? My guess (and that's all it is) is that if you have the talent to be a top footballer you'll get there despite the competition from other codes - notwithstanding luck, having a pathway etc.

I've heard anecdotally that John Egan was a brilliant GAA footballer, Shane Long a great hurler, Tony Grealish a very good GAA footballer, Niall Quinn a real talent at hurling. Several rugby players like Rob Kearney had very good GAA backgrounds. But they all ended up doing what they were comparatively better at and at a very high level. I read at the time of his death that Grealish was immersed in GAA culture but what really stood out was his gift for footy. Does football really lose top class talent to GAA and rugby? Maybe we actually benefit from it?

I'd place more value on an argument that Croatia and Denmark benefit from having exposure to other sports like handball, or hockey in the Netherlands, sports that give you not just the diversified exposure you need to develop certain motor skills but also spatial awareness that is closer to the needs of football.

I'm not sure rugby draws its talent pool from potential top class footballers. I'm not making a socio economic cliche here but a disproportionate number of rugby players come from a small number of schools. And the type of athlete needed to excel at rugby isn't necessarily the same as that required by football. GAA football is probably closer but I remember hearing stories like Graham Geraty trialling at football and not being good enough.

I think the GAA's economic and political might crowds out investment in football though, and that is a big factor. I don't think the IRFU crowds out potential investment in football though.

Yeah I agree we don't lose irish internationals to gaa. Tohill and gerarthy had a go at pro football when at a high level but weren't good enough.

Dessie Hutchinson at Brighton was a very good player but a level below the likes of molumby and when it didn't work out went back very successfully to hurling.

Lads gave up gaa to play pro rugby sweetman the Cork hurler been an example of a super hurlin talent who took the pro contract with munster when it was on offer and has had a decent 10 year rugby career but hasn't reached the heights I think he would have in hurling

GAA loses players to afl rehularly simply as it offers a bit of travel and a chance to earn a bit of money and the vast majority have very limited success compared to how successful they would be at gaa

Bottom line is there are likely no kids who would have been international footballers if it wasn't for gaa

[seanfhear]

Yeah I remember John Egan Senior very well!

But what was your main point? That you were maybe a more effective GAA player despite being more talented at football? Did playing both make you better at either?
No ~ I was a more talented soccer player ~ Had a bit of skill, even if I say so myself ~ I suppose being able to look after myself on a GAA pitch also helped me be able to look after myself on a Soccer pitch ~ The skills did not really translate from Soccer to GAA.

I spent a lot of time on my own becoming skilled with a soccer ball ~ ~ Had there been a lot of other boys about playing GAA I may well have become more skilled at GAA ~ ~ I think you need to actually play GAA to become skilled at GAA ~ ~ I think you can actually become skilled with a soccer ball on your own ~ ~ I even played a lot indoors un-supervised on the stairs / in rooms in just socks ~ ~ I became skill-full at not banging my toes off stuff while still controlling the ball ~ ~ I did once break a crystal jug belonging to my mother ~ like I said I was left “ un-supervised “ a lot. Obviously you then need to play soccer to translate that skill to the soccer field. I did some of this but not enough and certainly not enough 11 a side ~ ~ lots of 5 aside though ~ I was / am around 5 foot 9 inches ( and a bit ) ~ ya might get away with that in soccer ( in some positions ) but you would have to pretty darn good or in a specialist position to do well in Rugby or GAA at that height. You might get away with being a clever fast forward / fullback in soccer or extremely good in other positions in soccer at that height.

I would say ~ again my own opinion ~ my three weakness’s as a soccer player were ~ Very right footed / could have done with a bit more speed but who couldn’t / probably could have done with being a bit bigger as well ~ ~ I was pretty good at everything else if I say so myself and was obviously a great loss to Irish soccer ( wink wink )

I also did a lot of ball work outside of course ~ just pinging passes to a seat / pillar / what ever / off a wall ~ ~ another weakness, not a great long passer.

I did play as a forward in both sports which is mildly interesting.

[seanfhear]

[QUOTE=liamoo11;2132617]Yeah I agree we don't lose irish internationals to gaa. Tohill and gerarthy had a go at pro football when at a high level but weren't good enough.

Dessie Hutchinson at Brighton was a very good player but a level below the likes of molumby and when it didn't work out went back very successfully to hurling.

Lads gave up gaa to play pro rugby sweetman the Cork hurler been an example of a super hurlin talent who took the pro contract with munster when it was on offer and has had a decent 10 year rugby career but hasn't reached the heights I think he would have in hurling

GAA loses players to afl rehularly simply as it offers a bit of travel and a chance to earn a bit of money and the vast majority have very limited success compared to how successful they would be at gaa

Bottom line is there are likely no kids who would have been international footballers if it wasn't for gaa I will give one example of a guy that would surely have been a good soccer player ~ ~ Mikey Sheehy of Kerry ~ ~ That man had ball skill to burn as a GAA player ~ ~ I find it impossible to believe that had he being playing soccer from a young boy that he would not have been able to transfer that ball skill to soccer ~ ~ Look the reality is to make it as a professional soccer player then you are going to have to have played an enormous amount of soccer when you are young. Isn’t there something about 10,000 hours of practice whilst also having the talent.

I reckon there is a lot of GAA players that could have made a darn good go of making it at soccer if they had played enough soccer when they were young ~ ~ And some of them actually making it as professionals. Kevin Moran as one example.

[Eirambler]

Yeah I agree we don't lose irish internationals to gaa. Tohill and gerarthy had a go at pro football when at a high level but weren't good enough.

Dessie Hutchinson at Brighton was a very good player but a level below the likes of molumby and when it didn't work out went back very successfully to hurling.

Lads gave up gaa to play pro rugby sweetman the Cork hurler been an example of a super hurlin talent who took the pro contract with munster when it was on offer and has had a decent 10 year rugby career but hasn't reached the heights I think he would have in hurling

GAA loses players to afl rehularly simply as it offers a bit of travel and a chance to earn a bit of money and the vast majority have very limited success compared to how successful they would be at gaa

Bottom line is there are likely no kids who would have been international footballers if it wasn't for gaa

I have to say I couldn't agree with this less to be honest. I'm absolutely convinced that we lose international standard players to GAA, loads of them, we just don't know who they are (and they're probably not the big name gaelic footballers).

Take, just for example, the counties of Dublin and Mayo. Dublin has about 10 times the population of Mayo, but probably 100 times the number of senior international football players, if not more. There hasn't been an Irish senior international from Mayo in decades. Statistically, if all things were spread equally, there should have been quite a few internationals from Mayo in that time, but there haven't been any. If there have been, say, 200 international players from Dublin in the last 25 years there should have been probably 15 to 20 from Mayo.

Do people really think that's because people from Dublin are somehow naturally better at football than people from Mayo? Surely it's fairly obvious that it's just the case because most kids in Mayo grow up only playing Gaelic, so therefore never have a chance to be professional football players. Whereas football is played a lot more by young people in Dublin.

The make up of our senior team is very clearly biased towards areas where football is played more. Obviously. Therefore there will be literally hundreds of people around the country today working in other areas who would have been professional footballers if they had just happened to have been born somewhere where the game is played more.

Just to put my own example on this - I grew up in a part of Ireland where hardly anyone played football. To the point where it was basically frowned upon to do so. You played GAA and that was it. As an adult I moved somewhere else (Glasgow) where football was the main sport and started playing regularly for the first time. Turns out, after playing catch up for a couple of years, I was actually a fairly handy football player despite being a very average gaelic player, I just never knew it before because I hadn't played other than a bit in the school yard.

I'm not saying I could have personally been a pro had I been born somewhere else or anything like that, but I knew loads of lads growing up who were generally better than me at sport, but only ever played GAA to a serious level. Without question potential professional footballers are lost in a situation like that. For that reason the failure of football to really break into GAA dominated parts of the country really does limit our playing pool.

[Fixer82]

I have to say I couldn't agree with this less to be honest. I'm absolutely convinced that we lose international standard players to GAA, loads of them, we just don't know who they are (and they're probably not the big name gaelic footballers).

Take, just for example, the counties of Dublin and Mayo. Dublin has about 10 times the population of Mayo, but probably 100 times the number of senior international football players, if not more. There hasn't been an Irish senior international from Mayo in decades. Statistically, if all things were spread equally, there should have been quite a few internationals from Mayo in that time, but there haven't been any. If there have been, say, 200 international players from Dublin in the last 25 years there should have been probably 15 to 20 from Mayo.

Do people really think that's because people from Dublin are somehow naturally better at football than people from Mayo? Surely it's fairly obvious that it's just the case because most kids in Mayo grow up only playing Gaelic, so therefore never have a chance to be professional football players. Whereas football is played a lot more by young people in Dublin.

The make up of our senior team is very clearly biased towards areas where football is played more. Obviously. Therefore there will be literally hundreds of people around the country today working in other areas who would have been professional footballers if they had just happened to have been born somewhere where the game is played more.

Just to put my own example on this - I grew up in a part of Ireland where hardly anyone played football. To the point where it was basically frowned upon to do so. You played GAA and that was it. As an adult I moved somewhere else (Glasgow) where football was the main sport and started playing regularly for the first time. Turns out, after playing catch up for a couple of years, I was actually a fairly handy football player despite being a very average gaelic player, I just never knew it before because I hadn't played other than a bit in the school yard.

I'm not saying I could have personally been a pro had I been born somewhere else or anything like that, but I knew loads of lads growing up who were generally better than me at sport, but only ever played GAA to a serious level. Without question potential professional footballers are lost in a situation like that. For that reason the failure of football to really break into GAA dominated parts of the country really does limit our playing pool.

Agree with this.
If there was no GAA the standard of domestic soccer would be far higher and more competitive

[seanfhear]

Agree with this.
If there was no GAA the standard of domestic soccer would be far higher and more competitive
Agreed Ireland is a sports mad country ~ ~ If so much more of that sports mad, was playing a lot more soccer, we would have many more good soccer players.

If you have a sports mad country and the population concentrates on a sport such as soccer then that country will produce many good players ~ E.G. ~ Croatia and Uruguay.

We play too many sports to be as good as we should / could be, in soccer. When you think about it we would be even worse had we not been supplemented by all the UK born players down through the years ! !

[SkStu]

I definitely agree with the general sentiment that the high rates of participation in GAA has taken some absolutely fantastic athletes away from soccer and other codes, I don't think it is the biggest problem we are facing or "the reason" we lag other nations in terms of producing a team that can compete. From what i can recall, participation rates in soccer remain high across our youths and on a numbers basis is higher than GAA (with a bunch of younger folks playing both up to U12 or U14 which is when there seems to be a decision made to drop something). Another factor is the decline in youth numbers in sports in general in Ireland which, although seems to be global, impacts smaller nations like us that bit more acutely.

There is so much that is within our direct control, though, when it comes to "the problem". Primarily coaching (which is improving anecdotally) and appropriate pathways. The FAI, as i think we can all agree, has been asleep at the wheel for 40 years. A policy of reliance on the FA, SFA and the IFA to be the main providers of our international players (granted the SFA and IFA are a far smaller part of that "strategy") whether through heritage or through development - - at the expense of self-determination is borderline unforgivable. Our greatest asset in that regard (our domestic league) remains a second thought and is still not at the top table in a meaningful way. Or at least the clubs have been left to figure it out themselves for the most part. Maybe it will all come together in the next ten years but i have been saying the same thing for the last 20 years at least and it is difficult to see any real progress. There has been a lot of talk about removing the power and politics from the youth system and transferring that to the LOI to create more meaningful pathways but its all too incremental from my perspective. We still seem to rely far too heavily on (increasingly less and less high profile) English clubs to develop our top young talent. I think it would serve us far better to think of the majority of our young talent going from youth to academy to professional (LOI) domestically as the "best way" and to make the necessary structural changes and financial investments to make that work. As i said, it is kind of happening but it is far too piecemeal. Just my thoughts...

[osarusan]

Agree with the above Stu, but when you think of the level of investment that would be needed to have our domestic clubs' training facilities, coaches, etc on a par with say the Championship or even League 1, we are miles and miles away.

[nigel-harps1954]

I have to say I couldn't agree with this less to be honest. I'm absolutely convinced that we lose international standard players to GAA, loads of them, we just don't know who they are (and they're probably not the big name gaelic footballers).

Take, just for example, the counties of Dublin and Mayo. Dublin has about 10 times the population of Mayo, but probably 100 times the number of senior international football players, if not more. There hasn't been an Irish senior international from Mayo in decades. Statistically, if all things were spread equally, there should have been quite a few internationals from Mayo in that time, but there haven't been any. If there have been, say, 200 international players from Dublin in the last 25 years there should have been probably 15 to 20 from Mayo.

Do people really think that's because people from Dublin are somehow naturally better at football than people from Mayo? Surely it's fairly obvious that it's just the case because most kids in Mayo grow up only playing Gaelic, so therefore never have a chance to be professional football players. Whereas football is played a lot more by young people in Dublin.

The make up of our senior team is very clearly biased towards areas where football is played more. Obviously. Therefore there will be literally hundreds of people around the country today working in other areas who would have been professional footballers if they had just happened to have been born somewhere where the game is played more.

Just to put my own example on this - I grew up in a part of Ireland where hardly anyone played football. To the point where it was basically frowned upon to do so. You played GAA and that was it. As an adult I moved somewhere else (Glasgow) where football was the main sport and started playing regularly for the first time. Turns out, after playing catch up for a couple of years, I was actually a fairly handy football player despite being a very average gaelic player, I just never knew it before because I hadn't played other than a bit in the school yard.

I'm not saying I could have personally been a pro had I been born somewhere else or anything like that, but I knew loads of lads growing up who were generally better than me at sport, but only ever played GAA to a serious level. Without question potential professional footballers are lost in a situation like that. For that reason the failure of football to really break into GAA dominated parts of the country really does limit our playing pool.

Agree with this. Just a small example, Finn Harps had five players at international level a couple of years ago throughout various underage grades. Once the GAA came calling, they were effectively all gone. Have seen it countless times over the years. Several members of the Donegal gaelic football squad were all promising footballers.

Have seen many others over the years turning down fairly big trials at football clubs in favour of whatever weird parochial pride they have in GAA.

We absolutely lose quite a number of top footballers to the GAA every year.

[SkStu]

Agree with the above Stu, but when you think of the level of investment that would be needed to have our domestic clubs' training facilities, coaches, etc on a par with say the Championship or even League 1, we are miles and miles away.

We are - miles and miles away - from a point where it makes a real difference. Which makes it even more galling that the FAI didn't see another way until it was basically way too late to make our successes in the 90's and early 00's more sustainable over a longer horizon. All those reports and recommendations over the years that just sat on a shelf gathering dust. Its a minimum 20 year plan and maybe we are in the midst of the transition required but I am not convinced.

[mark12345]

"All" is too strong. Coaching and youth structures are the biggest part, but there are others: e.g. as Ireland grew more affluent, the attraction of a risky sporting career may have diminished; rugby has become the flagship successful international team sport, siphoning off atheletic talent; the GAA also competes for talent; both GAA and rugby compete for state sports funding (as do horse and greyhound racing with a disgraceful amount of success); "home-grown" quotas in UK squads and the rise of UK football as a fashionably place for a billionaire to own a club means our players are competing with global talent far more than a generation ago.

The way you fight all of this is to improve domestic youth structures and coaching, and to invest in the domestic league as a development league for young talent. That requires competent investment, and we have the FAI: a laughing stock among sporting organisations even domestically.

Every single syllable of what you say is true, John. But I remember none other than Ray Houghton saying exactly what you just said about our domestic youth system way back in the mid 90's. It's been 30 years and there are little or no results.
If we have progressed as a footballing nation then others have progressed at a higher rate.

[mark12345]

But at the same time I don't want that sense of " irishness " lost..

Fair play to you Paul. Refreshing to hear.

[Stuttgart88]

Great article (https://foot.ie/threads/240390-Stephen-Kenny?p=2132726#post2132726) on Croatia's goalkeeper in general but this extract stood out in context of the above discussion, playing other games and having other careeer options. I'd have thought intuitively too that Ireland's relative affluence might affect kids' hunger to seek a career in sport but this guy had a very traditional "middle class" pathway marked out for him and still blossomed relatively late as a pro footballer.

Anyway, this is just a sample of one.

"The softly-spoken Livakovic also excelled at volleyball and basketball in his youth and briefly studied diplomacy and international relations at Zagreb university before joining Dinamo in 2015. “I’m putting it aside while I’m playing football, but I want to do it one day,” he said in an interview in 2019. “And my family is perhaps not sorry these days that I chose the ball instead of the book ...”"

[tetsujin1979]

If anyone has a subscription to independent.ie, this looks interesting
https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/world-cup/why-cant-ireland-be-more-like-croatia-the-answer-is-not-as-simple-as-people-think-42215101.html

[Fixer82]

Great article (https://foot.ie/threads/240390-Stephen-Kenny?p=2132726#post2132726) on Croatia's goalkeeper in general but this extract stood out in context of the above discussion, playing other games and having other careeer options. I'd have thought intuitively too that Ireland's relative affluence might affect kids' hunger to seek a career in sport but this guy had a very traditional "middle class" pathway marked out for him and still blossomed relatively late as a pro footballer.

Anyway, this is just a sample of one.

"The softly-spoken Livakovic also excelled at volleyball and basketball in his youth and briefly studied diplomacy and international relations at Zagreb university before joining Dinamo in 2015. “I’m putting it aside while I’m playing football, but I want to do it one day,” he said in an interview in 2019. “And my family is perhaps not sorry these days that I chose the ball instead of the book ...”"


The Irish rugby team being consistently ranked top 3 in the world would prove this theory wrong

[Stuttgart88]

The Irish rugby team being consistently ranked top 3 in the world would prove this theory wrongNot comparable imho. Most of our rugby players come from a relatively small number of schools - generally very good schools - and make very little educational sacrifice to achieve their sporting goals. You don't even need to have played rugby from a young age to excel at it later. The global rugby and football landscapes are poles apart.

It was a point raised by John on the last page. It's a hard one to test as a theory but I certainly wouldn't cite rugby to disprove it.

[mypost]

This is typical mypost.

"Give him time to do the job" - but he's had 30 games. "We won 50% of the last 6 games" - as the saying goes, there's lies, gross lies, and mypost's statistics. Two of those wins were dreadful performances against Malta and Armenia.

Unfortunately, after a decent enough last quarter of 2021, things seem to be going backwards now. "We won in Malta" - because they gifted us a goal we never looked like scoring. We scraped past Lithuania in the 97th minute. Enough of those performances, and one will bite you - stand up, Yerevan. And we got out of jail in the home game too.

One of the main criticisms of Mick was that we were really starting to struggle against the lower seeds - Georgia and Gibraltar in his case. We dropped two points in Tbilisi which was seen as a really bad performance. Now we take these sort of results as de rigeur. But if you aim to play passing, possession football like Kenny does (and that's a good thing) you should start to see an uptick in results against the minnows. They can't just sit and defend long balls; they have to be smarter - and they're not, by definition. So when Malta - whose best player is at Oxford - comfortably match us (worst player - Oxford) for 90 minutes, one howler aside, then there's problems. And when that happens with regularity, it's alarming.

Yes, the squad is the worst it's been in living memory - and it's unbalanced too; lots of defenders and no attackers - so that's a mitigant in his favour. But let's have less of the stats please.

No sorry.

From your post, it sounds as if you're overjoyed that because of the tactics we use, you're delighted that we lost in Armenia, but disgusted that we got out of jail apparantly, because we beat them at home.

If we're in the results business, (as we keep being told Kenny is in) then it doesn't matter how we beat Malta or Armenia or even Lithuania. The fact is we beat them, that's the truth, not lies, or even gross lies. If you don't like that stat, that's tough.

Nobody cares about performances in friendlies. Well, apart from Ireland fans it seems, while Kenny is in charge only. Despite the experiments in players and formations and tactics, styles of play and multiple substitutions that is routine in international friendlies, we care about how likely we were to score, and whether the performance is considered dreadful or not. Nobody else does.

When I say give him the time to do the job, that's what I mean, not hound him out the door after every single game, win draw or neither. We're not going backwards. We're scoring goals and we're winning games nowadays. 3 against Scotland, 3 against Armenia, 3 in Azerbaijan, 3 in Luxembourg. This is unheard of luxury by comparison to what's gone before, when we were scoring less than 10 goals per qualifying campaign, while failing to qualify in the process. And we're doing it while learning to play a better brand of football and bringing through new players. No we're not qualifying for tournaments, but it's something we've had to get used to for the past 20 years.

[Stav]

Surely kids should be allowed to play as many sports as they can until they are about 14. In that time they will find a sport that suits them and hopefully they will play that into their adult career and keep participating for longer than they might if they had to persist with a sport they did not really like.
The GAA are in every part of the country and they ensure that as many as possible play their games. Rugby to a lesser extent but it has made a real effort to spread the game and is now in locations it would not have been years ago.
Both of these organisations have been very well run for many years and it would be hard to imagine a CEO of either being give the power to effectively end up as the only voice that matters.
Soccer needs to look at these learn from them and relaunch itself. Its not that soccer does not have a lot of people participating bu there appears to be a complete disconnect from Abbotstown and the rest of the game in this country.
The FAI need to reset the page, reorganise, get better at relating to the grassroots and rebuild.
The GAA and Rugby don't stand in the way of players playing soccer. The fact that they are better run means that they are more attractive to young people. This is something soccer can address.

[ltfc_2004]

I think of my own childhood in Roscommon. I played GAA from U-10 to U-21 badly but every year we had a team, training and fixtures known well in advance as well as schools championship games.

Football was U-12 for community games where we trained on the GAA pitch using underage GAA posts and seemed surprised when we appeared on a football pitch how bigger the goals and pitch was so that was a total of 2 games in 2 years. In school we played soccer at P&E and indoor football in the winter. I played 5/6 a side indoors from 12-18 every Sunday night with the lads and kickabouts with others the odd time. There was no organised football team in our area till we played at Under 18 in Roscommon & District League and made the Div 2 final and it was great to play with guys from school from other GAA clubs who we normally fought on the field with even if good friends off it. It was more social than anything serious.

I played one game of rugby under 11 as I got dragged along by a neighbour to make up numbers.

My rural childhood cant be much different to a lot of kids. I am not sure how many decent footballers never got the opportunity to play the game or even get coached which is probably more important. GAA had great coaching and county stars would show up to train us or county development officers. The awe we as kids had when Ms Murray brought her father the legend Jimmy Murray to our school, the only Roscommon man to lift the Sam Maguire. The only soccer influence came from a teacher brought up in England and he didn't push it very hard to have a school football team.

[Snapshot]

Christmas plea to FAI: We know you're short of alternatives, money, credibility, marketability and ideas - but please, at the very least, face up to the bleedin' obvious - Stephen Kenny is simply not good enough for the national team. It was a fanciful financial appointment riding on the back of a feelgood factor. Nice try! The vast majority of fans invested heavily but it has been a shocker. That's not a left-field opinion - it's a 30-game, three-campaign fact.

Surely you've had the feelers out for a replacement? If not you're derelict in your duty of care for Irish football. It's three months to the Euros, please remove Kenny asap and appoint someone, even on an interim basis, who will at least inject hope and optimism. Even Santa ticks that box.

[texidub]

If you think Santa is going to contemplate taking on the Republic of Ireland job at this time of year, you're mistaken.
Back on Planet earth, the sad reality is that the FAI has been in Santa's bad books for years and it would go against everything he stands for.

It's a complete non-runner.

[Snapshot]

If you think Santa is going to contemplate taking on the Republic of Ireland job at this time of year, you're mistaken.
Back on Planet earth, the sad reality is that the FAI has been in Santa's bad books for years and it would go against everything he stands for.

It's a complete non-runner.

That you're possibly right is outrageous. So the FAI is sitting pretty, doing f-all? All is rosy in the garden then. We've just suffered three of our worst ever campaigns, shocking minnow defeats, a pathetic lack of tactical nous, qualification death after two games, backroom loses, garbled explanations, fanbase turmoil etc. Surely they're checking around because what we have currently is simply and historically unacceptable. It would be insane to sacrifice the Euros campaign, tough as the group may be, to the gods of more time and more failure.

[texidub]

That you're possibly right is outrageous. So the FAI is sitting pretty, doing f-all? All is rosy in the garden then. We've just suffered three of our worst ever campaigns, shocking minnow defeats, a pathetic lack of tactical nous, qualification death after two games, backroom loses, garbled explanations, fanbase turmoil etc. Surely they're checking around because what we have currently is simply and historically unacceptable. It would be insane to sacrifice the Euros campaign, tough as the group may be, to the gods of more time and more failure.

They have to be looking - especially with the managerial churn that tends to happen around WC time. Anything can and will happen so they need a plan b (not that they would be going around broadcasting it). Carsley is tempting.

I just can't bring meself to be too critical of the manager right now. A lot of young players short of club experience in the squad. They have provided some great moments, many more mediocre moments. No one in the set up deserves a lambasting, Kenny included, IMO. At the sme time, I'm not attached to the idea that Kenny has to stay. The Ireland team is bigger than any individual. And even for all the uncertainty and poor results, it's still better in many respects than some of the turgid (albeit more successful) stuff of managers past.

The WC has been sobering though. We're in an alternative footballing universe at the moment (and not just with the WC kicking off on the same day we played Malta). Seems like any country can beat any country these days, and yet you'd fear for Ireland against almost every team.

[texidub]

Forgot to say, I wish Kenny would stop referencing ticket sales when he's doing interviews. It comes across like tacky self-promotion with future negotiations in mind.

[Eminence Grise]

If you think Santa is going to contemplate taking on the Republic of Ireland job at this time of year, you're mistaken.
Back on Planet earth, the sad reality is that the FAI has been in Santa's bad books for years and it would go against everything he stands for.

It's a complete non-runner.

The problem with Santa is he always uses the same team with the big lad Rudolph up front. Predictable. But he does like getting the sack once a year. So... worth a shot?

[SkStu]

True EG, won't dispute any of that but there was a lot of terrace songs and rumours about the fact that Rudolph was kind of being isolated by his team mates and even a bit of bullying going on in the background. Santa, to be fair, was pretty decisive, made Rudolph captain and things really turned around from there. Credit where its due. On the flipside, doesnt seem like he has brought anyone young or new in for quite a while so might not be best for us going forward. My two cents anyway.

[seanfhear]

Santa Claus is Judged on Results.

[osarusan]

Can he do it on a wet Tuesday night in Lapland?

[Eminence Grise]

In fairness, it's a long time since we were giantsleighers.

[ontheotherhand]

As long as we put the right clauses in it could be worth a look.

[third policeman]

As long as we put the right clauses in it could be worth a look.

I thought he already got the sack.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

I’m not sure I did mention Serbia! I mentioned Portugal in reference to a ridiculous comparison above and because it was generally being discussed. Context is that I think Kenny and the team deserved quite a bit of credit for that performance, and probably the home performance too. It was the kind of performance that kept a lot of people on board and I think that belittling the performance is too subjective, using it to only downplay any credit the manager might deserve. Unfortunately as we all know, good performances haven’t been consistent, but I do think they’ve been there.

Hang on, it looks like you’re the one talking these teams up now :)

Largely fair. I think it’s within a manager’s gift to appoint a good head coach. Big Sam, Jesus…!

Recently for sure. Always, I don't think so, but as the pressure increased he took fewer risks. And Idah, Connolly were outside of his control. If he was acting in self preservation at home to Azerbaijan, for example I don't think he'd have gone with Idah, Connolly and Parrott. Overall I think it's been inconsistent.

OK, it felt to me you were getting at posters here rather than the wider public. One or two others were though.

I’m not sure that’s true. I think they got credit when it was due and criticism when it was deserved. And Martin O’Neill could have capped Declan Rice. Demonisation isn’t enough!

I wasn't talking up Azerbaijan or Luxembourg, I was making the point that it would be ridiculous for those countries to consider that they were competing with Portugal and Serbia despite running them close in games against them. They were also rans in the group and that's our level too under Kenny. He's turned us into plucky minnows.

But as I said, this discussion is completely pointless because Kenny supporters need the role of his assistants to be ignored fully in order to make any sort of case. And even then it's a very weak argument. Remember, without Barry or Eustace running tactical sessions, Kenny has only achieved 3 victories. Those 3 were against Lithuania, Armenia and Malta.

[Diggs246]

https://m.independent.ie/sport/soccer/international-soccer/france-and-real-madrid-star-karim-benzema-retires-from-international-football-42230556.html

I know they are still brilliant but this is good news for us

[John83]

I'm playing with ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot that everyone is raving about. I gave it the prompt: "Write a dialogue between two Irish football fans. One wants the manager of the national team, Stephen Kenny, fired. The other disagrees." I thought you lot might enjoy a robot mimicking us. Apologies for the join lines from the multi-part screenshot.

https://i.imgur.com/fzRTfYo.png

[CraftyToePoke]

Maybe you've stumbled across the solution, a bot to manage us, pick the style, formation and players. AIreland.

[John83]

Maybe you've stumbled across the solution, a bot to manage us, pick the style, formation and players. AIreland.

Maybe you're on to something there...

https://i.imgur.com/eQ77tng.png

D'oh!

At least it knows its own limitations.

[Snapshot]

Maybe you've stumbled across the solution, a bot to manage us, pick the style, formation and players. AIreland.
Definite plus for post-match interviews.

[Exgrad]

Glimpse into future after Latvia do us over in March (via chatgpi)

Interviewer: "Stephen, tough loss tonight. What are your thoughts on the game?"
Ireland Manager: "It was a difficult game, and we didn't play to the best of our abilities. Latvian were the better team on the night and deserved the win. We have to take this loss and learn from it."
Interviewer: "What do you think went wrong for your team tonight?"
Ireland Manager: "I think we lost the battle in midfield and struggled to create chances. Our defensive errors also cost us goals. We have to work on these areas and make sure we're better prepared for our next game."
Interviewer: "How do you plan to bounce back from this defeat?"
Ireland Manager: "We have a strong group of players, and we'll regroup and review the game. We'll work on our weaknesses and come back stronger. We have a number of important games coming up, and we have to make sure we're ready for them."
Interviewer: "Stephen, thanks for your time. Best of luck in your future games."
Ireland Manager: "Thank you. We'll give it our all and hope to turn things around."

[Eirambler]

More coherent than most of Kenny's interviews to be fair.

[liamoo11]

Eoin Kenny scored for ireland school's today against. Australia. Is there a genuine desire there I wonder on his part yo be in the northern Ireland system?

[elatedscum]

Did anyone see the rabona that he his the post with? Absolutely ridiculous

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnwsRAFpQ4J/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

[ontheotherhand]

Did anyone see the rabona that he his the post with? Absolutely ridiculous

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnwsRAFpQ4J/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

So he has no left foot?

Seriously though, that would have been a puskas contender. Unreal technique. A rabona lob? A lobona?

[ifk101]

https://www.the42.ie/anthony-barry-4-5977369-Jan2023/

No return for Barry.

[JR89]

With Martinez walking into the Portugal job he's got a better job lined up already if he fancies double jobbing. He's also someone that could well move into management this summer.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

Why would he come back as number 2 if you think about it? So Kenny could try to claim the credit again for moderately improving our performances? The FAI top brass are trying to claim they've changed and things are run better now but sitting on their hands over this issue is not a good reflection on them. Chasing after Barry or Carsley or whoever should have been done by now when the opportunity was there. Who knows what circumstances those candidates will be in when the inevitable happens.

[paul_oshea]

I'd be concerned those in the FAI in power now wouldn't really be relevant in terms of running a footballing organisation. Is there anything available publicly about the board and their backgrounds? Other than quotas and outside influence on the board what's the experience?

[zero]

It occured to me earlier that we all - or nearly all - have our head in the sand re kenny, we are so desperate for him to succeed. It's only when he is bounced out that we'll realise what a mess his time in charge has been. We're kicking the can down the road as long as he is at the helm unfortunately.

I would suggest though that unless he pulls things together in short order this is his final campaign. I hope he manages it.

[SkStu]

I think everyone feels the same at this point.

[Razors left peg]

It occured to me earlier that we all - or nearly all - have our head in the sand re kenny, we are so desperate for him to succeed. It's only when he is bounced out that we'll realise what a mess his time in charge has been. We're kicking the can down the road as long as he is at the helm unfortunaltey.

I would suggest though that unless he pulls things together in short order this is his final campaign. I hope he manages it.

I think theres no doubt that hes in the last chance saloon. And this has already been massively over discussed, but what constitutes pulling things together in this campaign is what a lot of the debate is really about at this point.