Not long home, but still buzzing after the game. Best Ireland performance I've seen in a long time - the kind of discipline Trap wanted, but with the freedom to pass the ball and be inventive in play, and, most importantly, to play with confidence. Thoroughly deserved win, and if all the baby steps in improvements keep adding up, we'll be a different proposition at these finals. Allons-y!!
Lovely performance. It was everything I wish we had been against Scotland at home. We were dominant, clinical and pressed the opposition in a very effective manner.
This campaign has had a few low points but I really think that the new management team have managed to re-inspire the public's confidence in the side. We have been negative about our side for a while and questioned why there aren't more Irish players in the Champions League. For the last few weeks, the media have ensured that every good touch that Pjanic or Dzeko has taken has been slid under our nose as another reason why we're in big trouble. Pjanic and Dzeko seldom bothered us over the course of the two legs and someone like Robbie Brady has had far more of an impact.
The media have had this agenda that we're not producing enough players in top PL sides. The PL is saturated with top quality from all over Europe. Most of our team tonight are very comfortable at good PL sides; Brady, Coleman, Clark, McCarthy, Whelan, Hoolahan and Walters. Long, McClean and O'Shea were on the bench, sitting beside the best player in the MLS. And that goes without mentioning our current midfield dynamo, Jeff Hendrick. Bojan Krkic and Xherdan Shaqiri have been heralded as the next great coming in European football over the past few years. Both have struggled to match Jon Walters' effectiveness at Stoke.
Then there's the concept that we are too reliant on foreign-born players. Well, there were a mere 4 starting tonight and for all the rubbish that is spoken about players playing for us because they couldn't play for England, Clark, Keogh, Walters and McCarthy have been pulling on the Irish jersey for a long, long time and 2 of the pair were highly sought after by other nations. The pride of Walters honoring his mother's memory must be enormous.
Awesome post-match interview with Robbie Brady on RTE. A passionate and technically gifted player. He has been absolutely excellent for us all campaign. He got the crucial goal on Friday from midfield away and then came home and got man of the match from defense. At the age of 23, that takes a lot of ability and maturity. He has been immense for us this campaign. As has Jeff Hendrick. Two young players proving Irish football is far from dead.
I take it it was some of the Bosnian fans that ruined the minutes silence?
Ah c'mere lads - wasn't that just really, really great?
What a surreal qualifying campaign - three late goals, Shaun Maloney being a pox, Shay's comeback and Randy Randolph's emergence, McGeady's Georgian magic to warming the bench, Robbie dropped, Wessi and Hendrix in the middle, three different left backs, four different formations, Cyrus the Virus playing and scoring, Daryl Murphy leading the line, deflected goals, dodgy penos, kicking off in Glasgow to kicking up in the Aviva, drawing with the world champs, beating the world champs, winning a play-off against a decent side...
It's been a stupid year, a brilliant year. Stupidly brilliant. We wound our way from terrible to fantastic and all parts in between, but the thing that stayed consistent was the belief coursing through those players.
It's been far from perfect, but we qualified and our performances under pressure in the last three months have been outstanding. O'Neill and Keane really deserve a whole lot of credit for exerting a calm influence and coaxing some superbly cohesive, composed performances on what has been a stormy, thoroughly rambunctious qualifying campaign.
I thought we were excellent tonight, and fully deserved to go through. First 15 we tore into them, and the Bosnians barely knew what was going on. They were losing their heads well before the peno (maybe they thought they'd try and out-aggro us, but had they not seen Jon Walters?). Penalty did look soft from where I was sitting, but haven't seen a replay.
Players were superb, pretty much to a man. Standouts for me were Clark, Brady, Whelan, McCarthy and that absolute hunk Walters. Keogh was super, Clark was just a beast. Man possesssed. Whelan did so much donkey work and top marks for harrying the Bosnians and calming everyone around. Brady kept going despite a few bad set-pieces and his best defensive performance by a mile.
Walters is our best player. Has been for the last year. Not just one of our most effective and committed, but also genuinely skillful, intelligent and influential.
Au lait, au lait, au lait lads. Nights like these are why it's all worth it.
Playground style, they started it but I didn't like our response.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fly
A few Bosnians were shouting during it - when I say shouting, there was maybe half-a-dozen shouts a few seconds apart each. You'd probably guess it was five Bosnians doing it (no more). Some Irish fans began shouting things like 'be quiet!' etc and anger grew from there, crescendoing in a flat chorus of boos coming from our end.
Personally, I wasn't too happy with their being any response at all. The booing came across as crass, if not worse, because it was so forceful against what was at most a few knuckledraggers. Understandable given the emotions surrounding the silence, but still.
The Bosnian fans are likely to get a lot of grief over what was a tiny minority, they showed a decent bit of class at the end by applauding our players as they went past in the lap of honour.
And the Germans now are now sh#tting themselves that they will be drawn in our group again! Great performance and after what was an up and down campaign, it seems O'Neill and Keane's influence is beginning to pay dividends. Can't wait until June/July!
And we're going to milk it for all it's worth!:DQuote:
Originally Posted by SwanVsDalton
And people were complaining that we celebrated a late equaliser against Poland like it was something important and that it displayed a loser mentality.Quote:
Originally Posted by abcd
Great mental resolve all round since the spring.
Just looking back on the last half hour this morning, I do think that the yellow given to McClean was incredibly harsh, considering it was just a little tussle on the byline, and that he had only been on for a few minutes: seemed like a reputation based booking for me, and even worse with some of the stuff the Bosnians got away with. But man, he did give away a lot of stupid frees down that right hand side before full time. Tonnes of enthusiasm, little composure.
Here's a video of the highlights and the handball - from 1.10 on the video it looks fairly clear that it doesn't touch his left arm at all, but does touch the right arm.
http://hoofoot.com/?match=Ireland_2_...ina_2015_11_16
Doesn't really matter though - when the chips were down Bosnia had nothing to offer at all. We would have come out on top anyway.
Good angle. Awful, awful decision. Right arm was tucked right up close to him; he couldn't have done more to avoid the handball. Coleman's appeal was half-hearted; no-one else appealed until they heard the whistle.
But slightly balanced up by the fact Spahic shouldn't have finished the game - probably not even the first half. And yeah, I think over the two legs, the better team did go through. Bosnia had too little by way of end product.
Not sure I agree with that. We knocked the ball long to Murphy and Walters most of the time. The performance came in defence where we were magnificent. Not sure about the rest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eminence Grise
Plus
Qualification (which is all that matters).
Defence - great.
Crowd support - best I've seen/heard for many a day (but where are they for the Georgia etc games?).
Minus
Possession 31%/69% (at home) - we still don't/can't keep the ball.
Daryl Murphy - why is he in the side?
Dead balls - poor as in last 2 previous games.
Wes - ineffective.
Churlish to find fault? Not really as I don't like glossing over everything when we win or think everything is awful when we lose.
It’s hard to enjoy such games. I always fear the worst even when 2 up and the crowd around me are chanting “You’re not singing any more” to the away support and my head is saying “one goal and they’re back in it. Shut up!! Have you no imagination?”. As it went in to the 2nd minute of injury time I started to believe and then they hit the post.
We got a dodgy penalty early on and although I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, I did wonder in the current climate whether UEFA would prefer Ireland or Bosnia at Euro 2016 for obvious reasons – one or two of their supporters disrespected the minute’s silence.
Today I will enjoy it and watch the full game with a cheeky little French wine in one hand and my wife's hand in the other (she’ll be asleep).
Day's like this don't come that often and I shall bask in the after glow for months.
Allez les verts
p.s. Long was nudged in the back just as he was about to shoot for his chance.
Literally just managed to make it to my desk this morning, my throat is raw, my head is pounding and my arms are covered in bruises from pinching myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.
What a game, what a performance and what an atmosphere! I love it.
Was it really that bad? There was a graphic late in the first half that it was 44/56. To drop to 31/69 implies about 20% possession in the second half - that was never the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Agree dead balls were a particular worry, even though we scored off one. Too often we didn't clear the first man at all.
Keane would have scored Long's chance. *runs away :) *
Was it just me or do we seem to be a bit shot shy too?
Was abroad and couldn't make it to the match but the support in the stadium was excellent and I've noted that my own mates (lads in their mid-20's) have become enthusiastic and excited about supporting the Ireland team for the first time in a while. Hats off to both the management and the players for that. I've seen us grow in spirit and style over the course of this tournament. We've nicked a win from the World Champions in fairly lucky circumstances and then dominated the side ranked 20th in the world over two legs in a really clinical pair of performances.
5 players made the appeal for a penalty which the ref then acknowledged, what can a player do? keep appealing?Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The TV angle from behind the goal doesn't confirm whether it deflected or not off the left arm, we do not see the ball deflection.
I'd go more on the real time TV angle, which shows the ball taking a definitive downward deflection off the outstretched left arm.
Couldn't believe when I saw people saying it was a dodgy penalty after the game. From where we were (and I think it was a similar angle to the ref) it looked like he blatantly stuck out his left hand to block the ball, I was on my feet screaming for it instantly. Funny looking at it now and it looks like he never touched it with his left hand at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Thankfully the 'be careful what you wish for' statements from some punters and the media when some of us wanted Trap gone proved to be utter ********.
We beat Germany and got a draw away from home against the WORLD CHAMPIONS.
Beat Bosnia (another ranked team above us) at home
We can score goals without Robbie.
We make subs that change games.
We actually look good defensively
The fans are starting to believe in the team again.
RIP 4-4-2