Brian Kerr Documentary

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Originally Posted by d f x-

It's not hard to play poorly when we bypass the midfield like we did at home to Switzerland. The most common phrases I heard in the commentary in the latter stages of the tournament dealt with "Harte/Dunne/Cunningham/Finnan/Carr/Given goes long"

The team is going to be awful when you resort to that and that's where Kerr failed or should have changed if he saw that for the final 5-6 matches like I for one did

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Against Holland last year I don't remember one long ball. Given kept passing the ball to one of the defenders and they worked it from there. It was only a friendly but that was the game plan for that match. Kerr doesn't have a particular style of play. He plays the best style to try to exploit the opposition. Strachan said a couple of days ago:
“There’s not a long ball and a short ball as far as I’m concerned – only a good ball.”

We did have a few managers that played the long ball game regularly but Kerr changed the style of play for different matches. He said once that he likes to play different formations in friendlies to get the player used to them so he can switch during matches. I don't think he did that though. :)

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Originally Posted by eirebhoy

We did have a few managers that played the long ball game regularly but Kerr changed the style of play for different matches.

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A "few managers"? I think Big Jack was the only long ball manager we ever had. Mick Mc immediately changed the team to a passing game and never changed after than.

The Girlfriend was in a retaurant a few days ago and with ol big BK three tables down from her....I sent her a text to ask the big man if he was gonna eat dinner and if so was he gonna take responsibility for it???? Boom Boom ;)

I've just read through al this thread and some of it has made sense, some of it has been rubbish. Someone(Can't remember who), claimed Kerr was too busy smiling for the media to do the job properly. I nearly got sick laughing at that one. Whoever that was must have missed the savage media campaign against Kerr (The worst, and most personal, I can remember - even worse than the abuse dished out to Eoin Hand). Someone else said the players got Kerr to the top of the group in June, and he then blew it. That's an interesting view of things. The players were responsible for all the success, Brian Kerr for all the failure.(See "selective" in the dictionary) My Club crest probably gives away my sympathies - I'm a Brian Kerr fan, always will be. He's rightly a legend around Inchicore, and don't forget he's still the only Irish manager ever to win a trophy at any level. (If anyone's even thinking of mentioning Jacks little 3 team tournament in Iceland, don't bother.)On the Kerr v McCarthy debate, I don't think that one was significantly better than the other. McCarthy had more success, he also had more time. One thing they have in common is that when the wheels started to come off, and the media turned on them, they were both unable to arrest the slide in the team. McCarthy had Keane at his peak too, which can't be underestimated. Kerr had him for four competitive games when he was past his best. Kerr lost 2 competitive games during his time in charge, to listen to some people you'd think he'd lost a dozen. OK, he didn't win enough, and I'm not saying he did a perfect job, but let's have a bit of balance. On the World cup campaign I agree the results against Israel are what cost us. In the away game Israel never loked like scoring,and it was probably the players as much as Kerr who were over-cautious(Besides he wouldn't be the first manager to err on the saide of caution in that situation. Difference is he didn't get away with it.) On the home game, I agree with Eirebhoy that Ireland should have won the game comfortably. There were more than enough chances and it was just one of those freakish games. They had a good 10-15 minute spell and scored twice from penalty and a free kick. Ireland dominated 80 pre cent of that match and I don't buy for a second the argument that the substitution cost us the 2 points. That's hindsight gone mad. Like I said they had 15 good minutes in the game, who's to say it wouldn't have happened even if Robbie Keane had stayed on(or indeed if Elliot had come on in his place). The French game at home was extremely close, and one we were always liable to lose. It's after that in my opinion that the wheels really came off. I think the whole media situation really affected, not just Kerr, but the players too. The performance in Cyprus stank of fear, pure and simple. No doubt someone will pop up to say that it was Kerrs job to get the players over that, so I'll save you the bother. It was, and he didn't. That's probably his one biggest failure in my eyes. But something people should bear in mind, very few managers have ever managed to turn things around once the downward spiral begins. It takes on a momentum of it's own. I don't believe it makes Brian Kerr a bad manager. Add to this the fact that he was missing his two best players for the Swiss game, and Robbie Keane was going through a bad patch at Tottenham (Who knows what difference it might have made if he was in his current form.) So that's my take on things. A lot of excueses, sure, but all valid ones I think.

I think these are all fair points Tony, and well made too.

But when you say Israel never looked like scoring in Tel Aviv, I'd draw attention to a great save by Shay from a free kick in the first half and two absolute gilt-edged chances in the second (one ballooned over and another hit straight at Shay when it was as easy to score).

It doesn't change my opinion that neither McCarthy nor Kerr was a particularly good international manager & we should be looking higher up the ladder this time.

Mick McCarthy finished no worse than 2nd in any campaign. I agree he made mistakes particularly in his first campaign.

Brian Kerr finished no better than 3rd. That was our lowest finish since 1985. We finished 4th in his 2nd campaign.

He asked to be judged on results. He was!!!!!

I agree with both GSpain and Tony D on this one. I think the points are well made in Tony's post and it does give a bit of context to the whole debate. But in the end you are judged on your results over 2 campaigns and Gspain is right we did not finish any better than 3rd and we only ever had one super power in our group over the 2 campaigns and that was France. Finishing 3rd maybe ok if we had 2 super power teams like we may have in the next campaign.