Austria v Rep of Ireland - Ernst Happel Stadium, Vienna - Sat, 12th Nov 2016 - WCQ

[paul_oshea]

we should have been 3 - 1 down to Serbia by the time we equalised. it was a point won in my opinion as we hardly threatened from 2nd minute until about the 75th

The difference between Serbia and Austria was they were less impotent up front, but Serbia were more porous at the back. We should have capitalised on that. Individual mistakes aside our defence has been very good. Eradicate those and we have a top class defence.

[paul_oshea]

Good man YOP. I like Giles but I think that's a pretty crap piece to put it bluntly. O'Neill may have questioned the quality of our squad at times but I think he's been pretty upbeat for a long time now. He often says "they are a very fine side", when talking about the opposition. Big deal, no point in giving the opposition an extra incentive by saying something like "ah, they're no great shakes really!". It's just common manners, I can't ever remember him implying that we're inferior to the opposition, bar Germany, but that's a no brainer and it didn't do us any harm anyway.

We were blessed to get a draw in Serbia... it's was an absolutely brilliant point under the circumstances and looks like an even better point now. There was only one team that deserved to win that game and it sure as hell wasn't us. Yes, if we'd just decided to play a bit better then we might have won (cos football is really that simple!), but we didn't so we were lucky to draw. How anybody can still think it was anything other than a good draw is beyond me to be honest. If I was from Serbia I would have been seriously frustrated with the two points dropped.

Maybe its like the 5 stages, he started us off believing we were real underdogs, really not worth much and slowly built up the team confidence, then he nurtured a they are better than us but we can overcome that with our self belief and our spirit and our determination and our steelines. The next 2-3 stages just involve making us world beaters :P

Seriously though perhaps initially it was to dampen expectations, and thats why he was saying it. Now they have evolved he is less concentrating on the negative(them and us) and more on the positives(us).

Either way, the lads have to stop thinking they are inferior to these average teams and start breeding a winning mentality. We have international quality players to a good, decent standard and our results are showing that. Lets start acting like that. It's not a negative YOP, its actually a positive im trying to draw on. I'm not settling for the auld Irish lets be just happy with our lot.

[paul_oshea]

We were blessed to get a draw in Serbia... it's was an absolutely brilliant point under the circumstances and looks like an even better point now. There was only one team that deserved to win that game and it sure as hell wasn't us. Yes, if we'd just decided to play a bit better then we might have won (cos football is really that simple!), but we didn't so we were lucky to draw. How anybody can still think it was anything other than a good draw is beyond me to be honest. If I was from Serbia I would have been seriously frustrated with the two points dropped.

They weren't though, and I watched with a "neutral" at the game and they were saying Serbia weren't really up to much either, that Ireland should be able take them. Maybe on TV it looked a lot more fraught than it actually was, but being there I felt we could(and should)take them. We disagree i know so Ill move on

[Yard of Pace]

Lets start acting like that. It's not a negative YOP, its actually a positive im trying to draw on. I'm not settling for the auld Irish lets be just happy with our lot.

It's a negative in that you're desiring the players and management to change their approach. I think we should just leave things be as we're top of the table by 2 points and have just beaten a team who my father has been waiting for us to beat since 1971. Limerick's last All-Ireland was more recent.

I don't believe for a second that Coleman or O'Neill see us as inferior or underdogs or a team with not much quality. But their words, if they are worth thinking about, in my opinion, will probably help the Austrians, Welsh and Serbs to feel even more peed off for the next four months. And that's a good thing.

[DeLorean]

They weren't though, and I watched with a "neutral" at the game and they were saying Serbia weren't really up to much either, that Ireland should be able take them.

I meant after the match.

[OwlsFan]

The difference between Serbia and Austria was they were less impotent up front, but Serbia were more porous at the back. We should have capitalised on that. Individual mistakes aside our defence has been very good. Eradicate those and we have a top class defence.

Eradicate individual mistakes in any defence and you'll usually have a top class defence. That is normally the difference between winning and losing: the team which make the least errors win. Just about every manager finds fault with how the opposition scored. For our goal, Wimmer was out of position, imitating a dying swan when touched my Meyler and that is probably what their manager bemoaned.

I am still not sure how people say that Serbia were there for the taking when they played us off the pitch for most of the game other than for the period around our first goal. Did we fall back or were we pushed back? A mixture I'd say. On the basis of the play, we were blessed with a point. I have NEVER seen an Irish team dominate a major team away from home, other than perhaps in Paris but we won't go there.

I am still not convinced by this side (the Georgia first half comes to mind) but it is a team which can get results no matter how much on the back foot and that's a great strength. Giles doesn't need to be a genius to see that international football is not as strong as it was from a talent point of view but it is stronger from an organisational point of view and the team which works the hardest and makes the fewest mistakes is always in with a shout: our results against Germany show that. We are becoming hard to beat and are able to score even if pinned to our collars.

I don't think any Irish team ever regarded itself as a TEAM to be inferior. Under Trap we had this fantastic unbeaten away run which hardly smacked of inferiority. What we have been coy about is taking foreign teams on at "the passing game" in which style of play rightly or wrongly we regarded ourselves to be inferior, possibly due to most players being brought up in the hurly burly of the English league. O'Neill's team is not a "passing team" but I don't believe for a minute that he regards the team as being inferior to any of the other teams in the group. It is of course frustrating seeing the ball being given away but so long as the results keep coming, I am not too bothered.

[EAFC_rdfl]

They weren't though, and I watched with a "neutral" at the game and they were saying Serbia weren't really up to much either, that Ireland should be able take them. Maybe on TV it looked a lot more fraught than it actually was, but being there I felt we could(and should)take them. We disagree i know so Ill move on

God dammit I keep missing out on stuff cause I am only watching the match on TV

[Stuttgart88]

I felt we were the architects of our own near-downfall in Belgrade. We started great, they looked awful and purely through our own lack of composure and ambition let them back into it. They needed no second invitation and the more we let them play the more confident they became, with an inevitable outcome. The fact that we got back into it almost as soon as we started trying showed what we might have left out there. In the overall scheme of things it was a great result in many ways, but on the objective merit of that night and that night only I felt that it was more a lost opportunity to win than a gained draw, not least because their keeper was a total bag of nerves and a liability we should have exploited.

[Drumcondra 69er]

Couldn't make the Austria trip last week due to various commitments but having finally got to see the full game on Friday, here's my few thoughts on a brilliant victory!

http://afalsefirstxi.blogspot.ie/201...right.html?m=1

[tetsujin1979]

[tetsujin1979]

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