Play Off Predictions?

ROI 1-0 France
France 2-1 ROI

Easy.

Originally Posted by Cymro

ROI 1-0 France
France 2-1 ROI

Easy.

I think that’s the most credible positive prediction I’ve seen so far, other than…it means us keeping a clean sheet in Croker…Ribery out, who knows.

Honestly, I don't think the French are anything to fear. On rare occasions they are devastating but often they are lethargic and disjointed. I'd bank on the latter happening in both legs of the play-off, but nerves on both sides will ensure it's a close one.

Originally Posted by Cymro

Honestly, I don't think the French are anything to fear. On rare occasions they are devastating but often they are lethargic and disjointed. I'd bank on the latter happening in both legs of the play-off, but nerves on both sides will ensure it's a close one.

We need to beat the bejaysus out of them in terms of tackling, hassling, and pressuring. A bit like the way Roy Keane set the tone for the dutch game with his welcome to lansdowne road tackle on Overmars.

And of course .. a wall of noise at Croker and in Paris from the Irish fans. It will no doubt be close though as you said .. with the capacity for one moment of genius on the French part .. and of course the commercial pressures of having Ribery, Henry, Benzema and co at the World Cup which hopefully won't manifest itself in a dodgy decision.

ROI 1-0 France
France 1-1 ROI

Head tells me 1-1. Heart 2-1. I can't see us holding out for a 1-0 or even 0-0. But unlike the last time we played them in Dublin I feel we can score against them both at home and away. Even if we lose 1-2 at home I feel we can go to Paris and retrieve the game. We have proved against Italy and Bulgaria that we can hang in there in a big game. And maybe 40% of the time the team that hangs in there gets the result in the end. I don't feel they will be in the least bit bothered about playing in Croke park. And nor do I feel we will be bothered about playing away in Paris.

2-1 French Fries on a late, heart breaking goal from Henry as he waves his magic wand one last time.
I then drown my sorrows and wake up in an alleyway with no pants on sometime Sunday afternoon.

every chance it could be 1 all in both games and then penalties

These scorelines again would go down a treat. World Cup 74 qualifying 2-1 in Dalymount 1972 (Treacy scored winner late in game. Terrible, scary crowd crush leaving ground as a kid). Then drew 1-1 in Paris (Mick Martin?).

Originally Posted by Crosby87

2-1 French Fries on a late, heart breaking goal from Henry as he waves his magic wand one last time.
I then drown my sorrows and wake up in an alleyway with no pants on sometime Sunday afternoon.

you forgot the bit at the end "with a sore ass".

I can see them scoring in croker. I can actually see us going ahead in croker and they then scoring and it finishing 1-1.

If Henry doesn't start it'll be two draws.

If he does he'll grab something for them.

Other than him the rest of their attacking talent is either injured (Ribery), off form (Benzema) or nothing worth fearing.

Originally Posted by Murfinator

If Henry doesn't start it'll be two draws.

If he does he'll grab something for them.

Other than him the rest of their attacking talent is either injured (Ribery), off form (Benzema) or nothing worth fearing.

Henry is hardly on form either... and I doubt he's back to his best as he is still recovering from injury.

Benzema scored midweek... so let's wait and see how he does this weekend before we go and say he's off-form.

Also, you cannot rule out their third attacker, whether it be Govou or Malouda, or someone else.

Nearly crashed the car a half hour ago when I heard Mark Lawrenson say that he thinks we will go through. Dunno if I was more surprised by the prediction or that he didnt say that we dont have enough good players like he usually does

Great time to be a football fan at the moment, the anticipation of the game is reminiscent of the glory days.I genuinely feel we will go through, despite not winning either game.1 1 in Dublin, 2 2 in Paris.

I think Trap's experience and tactics, although staid at times, will make up for any difference in quality, just as there was a difference in quality between us and the Italian players, the vast majority of whom are regular Champions League players.

If we keep it tight we have a chance and may well sneak a winning goal somewhere. I worry though about our defence which tends to leak soft goals. It's going to be tight I would say and the winning team will probably win by the odd goal. I hope it's Ireland.

My other prediction is that the RTE pundits, if Ireland do well, will say, this is the worst French team ever. You can put your money on that and also that they won't give the manager an ounce of credit for turning a team of underachievers into a team who are hard to defeat and have a lot of fight in them.

Originally Posted by Razors left peg

Nearly crashed the car a half hour ago when I heard Mark Lawrenson say that he thinks we will go through. Dunno if I was more surprised by the prediction or that he didnt say that we dont have enough good players like he usually does

A lot of the pundits who were criticising Ireland during the campaign are now trying their best to jump on Trapattoni's bandwagon.

It makes you wonder if these pundits know any more than the rest of us.

Qualification is really all that matters, given the frustration suffered by the fans in the last 7 or so years. The style of play doesn't matter, the entertainment value doesn't matter, what matters is we make progress up the FIFA rankings.

what if we dont qualify Emmet? How does his achievement rank then? 4 wins and 6 draws plus whatever happens against France. Add in the performances to date to non-qualification and suddenly it doesnt look so good. But by then its too late for questions cos its just another case of us not qualifying...

Originally Posted by macdermesser

We need to beat the bejaysus out of them in terms of tackling, hassling, and pressuring. A bit like the way Roy Keane set the tone for the dutch game with his welcome to lansdowne road tackle on Overmars.

And of course .. a wall of noise at Croker and in Paris from the Irish fans. It will no doubt be close though as you said .. with the capacity for one moment of genius on the French part .. and of course the commercial pressures of having Ribery, Henry, Benzema and co at the World Cup which hopefully won't manifest itself in a dodgy decision.

ROI 1-0 France
France 1-1 ROI

The most optimistic I can be is 0-0 home 1-1 away. Sweet way to qualify.

But honestly, I see France 2-1 at Croker and 1-0 in Paris.

Originally Posted by SkStu

what if we dont qualify Emmet? How does his achievement rank then? 4 wins and 6 draws plus whatever happens against France. Add in the performances to date to non-qualification and suddenly it doesnt look so good. But by then its too late for questions cos its just another case of us not qualifying...

Remember the poisonous atmosphere at Croker at fulltime in the Cyprus game under Stan?....since then we have become competitive, hard to beat, brought the world champions within minutes of defeat.There have been numerous highs, Robbies late goal in Bari, Whelans screamer in Croker, Dunnes bullet header in Sofia.Think of the individual highs under Stan and Kerr.......exactly , not a lot.France are coming to town on the 14th, enjoy it, we're far from perfect, but have travelled quite a distance in a short space of time.Scotland Wales Norn Iron would love to be in our position.

so the difference is we will have memories of nearly winning but nothing to show for it other than that.

Oh okay then.

Originally Posted by SkStu

what if we dont qualify Emmet? How does his achievement rank then? 4 wins and 6 draws plus whatever happens against France. Add in the performances to date to non-qualification and suddenly it doesnt look so good. But by then its too late for questions cos its just another case of us not qualifying...

You are right...we'd be much better under Stan and Kerr...maybe it was a mistake for us to get rid of Stan...if we kept him on, we'd be playing lovely free flowing football now, we'd have cruised through the group, hammered the Italians, got revenge on the Cypriots by thrashing them home and away.

We'd have won 10, lost none and drawn none, goals for 50, against 0. Bring back Stan.