Stephen Kenny

[pineapple stu]

Ya i get that but has there been any deficiency in say Rugby? Most of the coaches that have managed successful provinces and successful Irish teams have come from outside the country. I see now you mean it as a more broad issue in the game in Ireland rather than related to stephen kenny or a new manager. There is definitely an issue, supply/demand, money, intelligence, brain drain pretty much like any other industry, and its worth considering as a general broader topic of football in Ireland.

I don't think you can compare rugby really. Rugby isn't really a global game, and the IRFU do have money whereas the FAI are quite poor relatively speaking.

The IRFU aren't in danger of losing a coach to London Scottish or to some Chinese team. The FAI really are competing with clubs of that level. So it's more important that we try develop our own coaches, as they're more likely to want to touch the job with a barge pole.

[paul_oshea]

But thats your comparison, they dont have to yet they are still getting external coaches, and it doesnt matter, if no competition it makes sense to develop their own. It hasn't hindered their ability or level that's the point.

[BOOMSHAKALAKA]

I think it worth a mention in terms of replacing SK the paucity of options among former players. It would be less of a conversation had we guys doing well in management IMO, but as it stands its very much

A stick with him
B get some busted flush from the UK merry go round where the likes of Paul Cook are being mentioned, which is incredible to me, but there we are.
C some career mercenary short term guy from the worldwide merry go round
D Jim Goodwin

Is it not unreasonable to think some of, lets just say the 2002 WC era squad, now be at a stage in their managerial careers to be suitable for the national job ? None are. Keane tried and Staunton was never a manager pre / post or indeed during his time as manager. Kinsella had a rattle at it too, but I think that's about it.

England has a gem in Southgate, NI have McCann, O'Neill & a handful more. Wales particularly from that time saw Giggs / Speed / Coleman & now Page do well. I am sure the Scots have a few around too, they usually do anyway. We have coaches, some respected ones too, and some not in our system anymore & you can say Hughton O'Driscoll & McDermott but I am on particularly about lads who grew up & lived here & that's where the trail goes dead.

The topic of player development is everywhere at the moment, but the lack of capable managers who's aspiration it would be to manage their country is just as pronounced.

Anthony Barry is another option but could be tainted from him role currently. Houghton is another option. At least he's shown previously that he's competent. We might have to seek a lesser known individual who's gaining a good reputation. Whatever we go with, it's got to be better than option A.

[tetsujin1979]

Is there any interest in revisiting the poll from earlier in the year - https://foot.ie/threads/265641-Poll-...-of-confidence
This would be a new poll, with the missing options noted in the thread included

[CraftyToePoke]

Is there any interest in revisiting the poll from earlier in the year - https://foot.ie/threads/265641-Poll-...-of-confidence
This would be a new poll, with the missing options noted in the thread included

Yeah, why not.

[Kingdom]

I don't think you can compare rugby really. Rugby isn't really a global game, and the IRFU do have money whereas the FAI are quite poor relatively speaking.

The IRFU aren't in danger of losing a coach to London Scottish or to some Chinese team. The FAI really are competing with clubs of that level. So it's more important that we try develop our own coaches, as they're more likely to want to touch the job with a barge pole.

What is required to be a coach of a professional outfit in rugby - certificate wise?

[Kingdom]

I think it worth a mention in terms of replacing SK the paucity of options among former players. It would be less of a conversation had we guys doing well in management IMO, but as it stands its very much

A stick with him
B get some busted flush from the UK merry go round where the likes of Paul Cook are being mentioned, which is incredible to me, but there we are.
C some career mercenary short term guy from the worldwide merry go round
D Jim Goodwin


England has a gem in Southgate, NI have McCann, O'Neill & a handful more. Wales particularly from that time saw Giggs / Speed / Coleman & now Page do well. I am sure the Scots have a few around too, they usually do anyway. We have coaches, some respected ones too, and some not in our system anymore & you can say Hughton O'Driscoll & McDermott but I am on particularly about lads who grew up & lived here & that's where the trail goes dead.

The topic of player development is everywhere at the moment, but the lack of capable managers who's aspiration it would be to manage their country is just as pronounced.

Only just seeing this gem of a post now.

I'd qualify what you'd say a small bit regarding B & C. Sometimes there are gems waiting to be unearthed. Sometimes those who you wouldn't think would work in a specific situation, does work. I know this will be laughed at, and I'm not suggesting he should be headhunted, but Bielsa's appointment, firstly with Chile, and secondly with Leeds, were both inspired choices. Particularly in Chile, that was the absolute right crazy person, at the right crazy time, with the right unashamedly crazy bunch of players. And his cv was not sparkling up until then, sure being argentina manager means you're certainly high-profile, but he wasn't a success elsewhere.

I've no problem with the FAI looking outside the box for a manager.

Is it not unreasonable to think some of, lets just say the 2002 WC era squad, now be at a stage in their managerial careers to be suitable for the national job ? None are. Keane tried and Staunton was never a manager pre / post or indeed during his time as manager. Kinsella had a rattle at it too, but I think that's about it.

A Kelly - we know.
Kiely - successful goalkeeping coach - haven't noticed much comments on his appointment since, and the improvement in Bazunu. Couldn't possibly be related.
Cunningham - has coached some underage teams in Dublin apparently (think he was involved with the Pats 17s maybe?).
Duff, Robbie, Carsley, Reid, we all are aware of them. But that's it.

I think at some point the FAI need to get some credit. If you look at the English FA and their underage staff, they have a lot of solid former pros, but few superstars. When myself and Peter met at the bosnia game in George's Park, I went walkies after the game as I'd time to kill. I saw an England 17s session (sure I wrote about it here) where they had a rake of coaches involved. There were a few recognisable faces (michael Appleton was one), Chopra, but they were more the reserved workmanlike pros involved. They have a lot of that going on. Similarly the FAI have done a relatively good job insofar as they sometimes appoint a famous ex-pro, but a lot the coaches are home-grown, on FAI courses, and quite a few have been through the League of Ireland.
That's why the talk around Kenny is important. We must be one of the only countries in UEFA, where being born, reared and lived in your own country is a deterrent for employment with the senior national team. You've really made a good point there CTP, and it's vital that people are at the very least aware of this. Coach progression is a huge thing, both in aspiration and practice, in mentality but also employment. When you've a majority of coaches being home-based, the first sight of one of them being dumped upon and the language around it, is not great.

[Stuttgart88]

I think I read somewhere that St Michael's alone has "produced" 14 current or recent Irish pro rugby players. Overall the schools' system does a large part of the IRFU's development job for it. That's a real advantage. Schools' coaches (who'd also be teachers) are paid for by the schools. At pro level I'm not sure of the coach credentials but many would be ex-players or ex-schools coaches I'd say.

[Kingdom]

I think I read somewhere that St Michael's alone has "produced" 14 current or recent Irish pro rugby players. Overall the schools' system does a large part of the IRFU's development job for it. That's a real advantage. Schools' coaches (who'd also be teachers) are paid for by the schools. At pro level I'm not sure of the coach credentials but many would be ex-players or ex-schools coaches I'd say.

Yep, hugely so. It has just morphed the old GAA school system really.

And in thinking about it - Kidney, Cullen and O'Gara have all done well in their respective head-coach positions compared to the "foreigners".

[Kingdom]

Is there any interest in revisiting the poll from earlier in the year - https://foot.ie/threads/265641-Poll-...-of-confidence
This would be a new poll, with the missing options noted in the thread included

Seconded

[Philly]

I've tried to bite my tongue this past week, which meant stopping myself from claiming some moral victory for Kenny after Portugal, to giving up all hope after the Azerbaijan game.

What a weird qualification campaign this has been. I do not think we have ever had a campaign be used to implement change like this before, and it is interesting to watch if a little frustrating at times.

My main takeaways on Kenny and his approach now are:

- Things are improving. We are playing better football, much more confident playing it out from the back, and generally building a confidence with the ball at our feet that Ireland have not had in a long time.
- What is not improving, and this is not really on Kenny, is our complete lack of a goalscoring threat. Despite the new, more progressive approach starting to show in our play, our CBs are still our most prominent threats.

If you look at the second half of the O'Neill era, and the whole McCarthy second coming, when we won it was usually by a goal, and when we drew against better opposition, it was usually low scoring. Most of our points depended on us either getting 1 goal and not conceding by playing mind-numbing conservative tactics against lower teams (Georgia, Gibraltar), or else defending very well against better teams and grabbing a goal.

Under Kenny, we have arguably improved how we do things. However, we have less attacking threat than ever, so we cannot bank of getting that one goal, and definitely not the two we need to overcome the likes of Azerbaijan if we concede one. The real disappointments of the Kenny era have been against lower teams, not against better teams.

O'Neill and McCathy had the likes of Walters and McGoldrick - not world beaters, but they had a record of scoring and were experienced at this level. However, Kenny does not have such a player to choose from right now.

I am meandering here, but to sum it up, I think the method is right with Kenny, but I am not sure he has the ingredients to make it work. He really needs one or two of Idah, Parrott and Connolly to come good and start scoring this season, or else it is hard to see this approach working. Without a way to score at least 2 a game against mediocre opponents, then McCarthys approach of not considering any and scoring one works best.

Whether Kenny succeeds and gets a shot is probably out of his hands now, and up to these young players progressing quickly enough for him to beat Luxembourg and Azerbaijan in autumn.

[paul_oshea]

What is required to be a coach of a professional outfit in rugby - certificate wise?

Work for AIB, Goodbodys, PWC, KPMG or Bank Of Ireland in some capacity.

[paul_oshea]

I've tried to bite my tongue this past week, which meant stopping myself from claiming some moral victory for Kenny after Portugal, to giving up all hope after the Azerbaijan game.

What a weird qualification campaign this has been. I do not think we have ever had a campaign be used to implement change like this before, and it is interesting to watch if a little frustrating at times.

My main takeaways on Kenny and his approach now are:

- Things are improving. We are playing better football, much more confident playing it out from the back, and generally building a confidence with the ball at our feet that Ireland have not had in a long time.
- What is not improving, and this is not really on Kenny, is our complete lack of a goalscoring threat. Despite the new, more progressive approach starting to show in our play, our CBs are still our most prominent threats.

If you look at the second half of the O'Neill era, and the whole McCarthy second coming, when we won it was usually by a goal, and when we drew against better opposition, it was usually low scoring. [i]Most of our points depended on us either getting 1 goal and not conceding by playing mind-numbing conservative tactics against lower teams[i] (Georgia, Gibraltar), or else defending very well against better teams and grabbing a goal.

Under Kenny, we have arguably improved how we do things. However, we have less attacking threat than ever, so we cannot bank of getting that one goal, and definitely not the two we need to overcome the likes of Azerbaijan if we concede one. The real disappointments of the Kenny era have been against lower teams, not against better teams.

O'Neill and McCathy had the likes of Walters and McGoldrick - not world beaters, but they had a record of scoring and were experienced at this level. However, Kenny does not have such a player to choose from right now.

I am meandering here, but to sum it up, I think the method is right with Kenny, but I am not sure he has the ingredients to make it work. He really needs one or two of Idah, Parrott and Connolly to come good and start scoring this season, or else it is hard to see this approach working. Without a way to score at least 2 a game against mediocre opponents, then McCarthys approach of not considering any and scoring one works best.

Whether Kenny succeeds and gets a shot is probably out of his hands now, and up to these young players progressing quickly enough for him to beat Luxembourg and Azerbaijan in autumn.

This is a great post and you've inverted the argument about why we possibly were so negative, because we had such an inability to score defending to ensure low scoring was the main motivation as opposed to conservative play because we were so porous. We can keep ball as long as we like but if we're not good enough to score the exercise is futile, as we're certainly not good enough to keep clean sheets. Food for thought there.

[pineapple stu]

What a weird qualification campaign this has been. I do not think we have ever had a campaign be used to implement change like this before, and it is interesting to watch if a little frustrating at times.

I think 1998 was similar. You look at the team for the first game of that campaign (away v Liechtenstain) and you have Given, Breen, Harte, O'Neill and Moore, all around 20/21 years old and all of whom had made their debuts since our last competitive game (the Anfield playoff against Holland)

That was a frustrating campaign (0-0 at home to both Iceland and Lithuania, struggles in Reykjavik and Vilnius, the infamous Skopje defeat), but there was still a tinge of excitement about the squad because of its youth. There's similar here, but with the added wild swings as you note, as we veer from being not remotely good enough to having turned the corner, back to being not remotely good enough, back to turning the corner again. 1998 wasn't quite so drastic.

Six years after that Liechtenstein game, we were back at a World Cup. We're starting from a lower base now (no Keane, Houghton, Quinn for example), and we still desperately need to solve the goalscoring problem, but you never know.

And of course we could just as easily throw it all away and lose 1-0 in Azerbaijan. I think the safest thing to say is we've never really had a week like last week.

[brine3]

I think 1998 was similar. You look at the team for the first game of that campaign (away v Liechtenstain) and you have Given, Breen, Harte, O'Neill and Moore, all around 20/21 years old and all of whom had made their debuts since our last competitive game (the Anfield playoff against Holland)

That was a frustrating campaign (0-0 at home to both Iceland and Lithuania, struggles in Reykjavik and Vilnius, the infamous Skopje defeat), but there was still a tinge of excitement about the squad because of its youth. There's similar here, but with the added wild swings as you note, as we veer from being not remotely good enough to having turned the corner, back to being not remotely good enough, back to turning the corner again. 1998 wasn't quite so drastic.

Six years after that Liechtenstein game, we were back at a World Cup. We're starting from a lower base now (no Keane, Houghton, Quinn for example), and we still desperately need to solve the goalscoring problem, but you never know.

And of course we could just as easily throw it all away and lose 1-0 in Azerbaijan. I think the safest thing to say is we've never really had a week like last week.

Although, we made it to the playoffs for France '98 (mostly thanks to being in a weak group) and were ten seconds away from automatic qualification for Euro 2000. But we were never threatened by the likes of Luxembourg or Azerbaijan. Of course, it can be argued that the minnows have come on a long way in the last 20 years.

[TonyD]

Although, we made it to the playoffs for France '98 (mostly thanks to being in a weak group) and were ten seconds away from automatic qualification for Euro 2000. But we were never threatened by the likes of Luxembourg or Azerbaijan. Of course, it can be argued that the minnows have come on a long way in the last 20 years.

Well, yes. None of these countries are getting 5/6 goal hammering anymore. Plus our quality of player has certainly declined in that time. Now some of the youngsters around are very promising, so I think things will improve, but it will take time.

[pineapple stu]

Although, we made it to the playoffs for France '98 (mostly thanks to being in a weak group) and were ten seconds away from automatic qualification for Euro 2000. But we were never threatened by the likes of Luxembourg or Azerbaijan. Of course, it can be argued that the minnows have come on a long way in the last 20 years.

Well, Iceland and Lithuania both drew in Dublin and both took the lead against us in the away games; they certainly put it up to us. They just weren't consistent enough to come top two.

It was a very weak group as you say - primarily because we were the second seeds, and we're third seeds this time. That's a big difference. If we'd had a Serbia-type team in the 98 group as well as Romania, things might have panned out a bit differently.

[paul_oshea]

A bit like say Yugoslavia? Or Croatia?

[pineapple stu]

Who...weren't in that group?

[Kingdom]

I think 1998 was similar. You look at the team for the first game of that campaign (away v Liechtenstain) and you have Given, Breen, Harte, O'Neill and Moore, all around 20/21 years old and all of whom had made their debuts since our last competitive game (the Anfield playoff against Holland)

That was a frustrating campaign (0-0 at home to both Iceland and Lithuania, struggles in Reykjavik and Vilnius, the infamous Skopje defeat), but there was still a tinge of excitement about the squad because of its youth. There's similar here, but with the added wild swings as you note, as we veer from being not remotely good enough to having turned the corner, back to being not remotely good enough, back to turning the corner again. 1998 wasn't quite so drastic.

Six years after that Liechtenstein game, we were back at a World Cup. We're starting from a lower base now (no Keane, Houghton, Quinn for example), and we still desperately need to solve the goalscoring problem, but you never know.

And of course we could just as easily throw it all away and lose 1-0 in Azerbaijan. I think the safest thing to say is we've never really had a week like last week.

Haven't considered it fully, but that could in time be a very good post to bookmark.
That's certainly the last real rebuilding phase. some subtle differences - the established members of the squad were all leaders in their own right - and the newbies were starters for their clubs (Sunderland Leeds, Birmingham and Norwich respectively right?) with the only coming off the bench with the match done and dusted. Splitting hairs perhaps.

That was a very competent Romanian team, with a lot of the 94 lads still around, and that showed as how they blitzed the rest of the group. Not as good as this Portugal side, but better (better's not the best word, more established perhaps) than Serbia. Nobody in this current group as bad as Liechtenstein, with Azerbaijan similar to Lithunaia then, and Luxembourg better than iceland.