Originally Posted by
geysir
As Stutts pointed out, it was curious why McClean was selected ahead of Stevens. But aside from McClean making numerous basic technical errors, it should be added that he just never gives up when other players (Doherty and Hendrick) were gasping. He managed to sprint back often for defensive cover, crucially so on 2 occasions and at the end his fitness and concentration on the 90th minute, his control and execution of the cross field pass to land on a sixpence was the technical highlight of the game. Kenny did not substitute him. We won't miss him when he goes but at the same time we will miss him, his attitude is just so positive when lesser mortals would be thinking they're an imposter.
Unusually so for an almost dead rubber game, I enjoyed it immensely even through the ping pong mistakes from both teams. The atmosphere was cracking and the large raucous Irish support had a ball. We were crap in the 2nd half until suddenly we weren't, when our football began to make sense.