Actually going back to the stats, Kieran Clark is 9th.Originally Posted by tricky_colour
So we have 2 in the top 20, England only 1 more at 3.
Gets a bit worse after that, we have 5 in the top 100, but that is still pretty good for us in recent history.
England have 28. 35 in the top 115, Grealish being #35, just out of the stats squad!!
You have to go down to #229 before we have a full 11.
Granted it is a rough guide, Rooney is about #161.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/...nd-aston-villa
Interesting article by Barry Glendenning. He's a highly respected journalist and puts forward a balanced perspective of an Irish supporter.
He might be ignoring the fact that Grealish has shown support for the English side in the past, however.
How would it cost us silly points? In the last 4-5 years we've always had at least one "competitive" game a year where we could have cap-tied a player as a sub in the last 5 mins.
2015 Gibraltar away (3-0 up at 51mins, 4-0 on 79 mins)
2014 Gibraltar home (7-0 up on 56 mins)
2013 Kazakhstan home (Game was dead rubber, we were out anyway, but we were 3-1 up on 77min)
2013 Faroes home (3-0 on 81 mins)
2012 Faroes away (3-1 on 73 mins, 4-1 on 88 mins)
2011 Andorra away (2-0 up at half time)
2010 Andorra home (3-1 up on 54 mins)
There are 12 subs in those games (of which you can use three) so there is scope to use a sub for cap-tieing purposes.
Some of the unused subs in those games include Ward, Elliot, Stephen Kelly, in the Faroes home game we had two sub keepers (Randolph and Westwoood). I don't think we would have taken a risk from a results point of view had we subbed on a player in that way.
Fair point. Still, it's very easy to say we should or could have capped him in hindsight.
It would have been a cynical carrot-cap and you'd have to think that Grealish, then playing in League One, would have seen right through it. Not that he was available for the game anyway.
Would you advocate capping one or two youth-level dual nationals for the last few minutes in games against minnows simply to cap-tie them? What would others make of such a policy? It's possible these players would receive a senior cap and then it'd be back to youth level for a few years as we all wait to see if they actually develop into the player we were all hoping they'd become. It'd make a mockery of things, surely, especially if half of them eventually failed to make the grade. Think of one-cap-wonder Joey Lapira... It was a friendly he played in, sure, but he's become a figure of ridicule and a stick with which to bash Staunton.
Yeah I probably would advocate that. If we were comfortably winning against a minnow in a competitive game (e.g. 3 goal lead 2 mins to play and had a spare sub) I would do it. Certainly if we had an under 21 player who looked like a huge prospect and there was a chance another federation could pick him then yes I would cap-tie him. If we had forced the issue with Grealish a year or two ago then one of two things would have happened to him:
(a) he would have played for us and become cap-tied to us
(b) he would have said no and we would at least have had it made obvious that he saw his future with another national team
I supposed there is a possibility that (b) would have been fudged into a (c) where the FAI would have said "we don't want to put him under pressure" and the issue would have been kicked into the long grass, though it would have only delayed the decision.
With (a) you potentially get a quality player guaranteed to be tied to your team, even if he's a duffer you've only used 2-3 mins of (pretty much inconsequential) game time which could have gone to another player. With (b) well at least you know his heart isn't in it and you can drop him from the U-21s etc and let other, more committed players, develop in the youth teams.
Has Grealish only learned now that he can't just switch over immediately and actually has to go through an administrative process post-request? That article says the process should take 4-6 weeks, although it can take up to 3-6 months. I recall Shane Duffy's switch taking quite a while. He applied to switch in mid-February of 2010 and eventually received clearance in mid-August of the same year.
Hmm, I guess I can't really think of any other drawbacks besides the player occupying the squad place of another better and more experienced player and us looking a bit daft if the player concerned eventually fails to live up to his potential.
There is an element of that (depriving an experienced player of a place in the squad), but I think 1 (or 2) places in a squad for a game against minnows is a risk worth taking. In the Gibraltar/Georgia squad we could have left out Stephen Ward, McShane or Adam Rooney (although he himself could be deemed promising) as all three of them were very unlikely to all be used in normal circumstances. Would we look that daft if the player fails to live up to expectations? You have to expect false dawns in international football, did Joe Lapiera really make us a laughing stock? We've had quite a few other false dawns (or near false dawns) over the years, Alan O'Brien, Terry Dixon, Sean Devine, Ronnie O'Brien, Liam Daish etc. If say Grealish had been added to that list what difference would it have made.
On the other hand if we had forced the issue a bit more, irrespective of what decision he made, we would have been in a better position. We might have ended up with a player of good quality who could be making a big impact for us in the play offs (should we get there). Imagine that say Grealish, Crowley and Nathan Redmond had all been cap-tied to us. They all are reasonably good young attacking players and we could be looking a really good attacking trio who would have played in the same team at youth levels (and perhaps overage friendlies), that would have been an ideal (and perhaps improbable) scenario. Now on the other hand suppose we pressured them into playing a cameo role in a competitive minnow match and they all said no. It would be a bit of a body blow, but at least we would know that they were never really going to consider us and, through the youth teams, we could try and bed in other attacking players who would be contenders for us. We could have had players like Will Hayhurst, Alan Browne developing in the U21s, and we could have players like Tommy Hoban getting the experience of being captain in those games.
Indeed, you're correct. It doesn't have any tangible or substantial detrimental effect that I can think of. If some people find "one cap wonders" amusing and ripe for ridicule, ultimately it's no more than an insignificant superficial concern if you actually give a damn. The odd one or two now and again wouldn't really disrupt squad fluidity/consistency/continuity either.
Edmundo has made a good case, a better case that I could have imagined being put forward, but it still wouldn't really sit well with me. I don't mind having a reputation of been opportunistic beneficiaries due to the eligibility rules, but I wouldn't want a reputation of aggressively pursuing every confused young player who shows some ability in the lower leagues. It's overly desperate, a bit unfair on a possibly impressionable young player who could easily regret his decision later on, in which case his heart probably wouldn't be fully in it anyway and, as alluded to, I don't think it would do much to help unity within the existing squad. It might not have been too bad in Grealish's case, as he was playing for us up along anyway, but I wouldn't like if it was our common approach towards other young players that qualify. I think MON handled the situation very well, the result wasn't a favourable one but so be it.
Last edited by DeLorean; 30/09/2015 at 9:54 AM.
I think the crux of edmundos argument is the potential of said capping player. Grealish stood out well above the rest. They don't come along often. Rarely in fact for us at the moment, so it would be a rarity handing out these caps.Unlike some of those who replied to Grealish’s tweet in the strongest possible terms, we can only wish him all the very best in his international career … up to a point, but writing as a Republic of Ireland fan who always felt this was the fork in the road Grealish would eventually take, the conspicuous absence of any explanation for it does rather stick in the craw.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
Afaic, O'Neill did his job well, he asked Grealish on more than one occasion if he was ready to join the senior squad and Grealish declined. O'Neill when making a personal visit to talk with the Grealish family was him going out of his way to persuade Grealish to declare for the senior squad. Just because Grealish declined, doesn't mean O'Neill didn't do his job properly or that there was a pressure option available that O'Neill/FAI didn't use, to lead Grealish by the nose into the Irish senior set up.
Hodgson emphasising Grealish's Englishness and downplaying his Irishness today: http://www.football365.com/news/no-s...h-says-hodgson
Grandparent to grandchild a "distant root". Try telling that to most grandparents.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Indeed. It's a peculiar way of putting it. It almost sounds like a little dig. I think the aversion many Britons have to the "granny rule" is a cultural thing (British citizenship law assigns no legal significance to the grandparental bond in terms of inheriting nationality), although the fact we have benefited quite a bit from it with England and Scotland-born Irish nationals who might otherwise have been considered by the FA or SFA is bound to contribute. I put down some thoughts on after writing a response to Martin Samuel's awful Daily Mail piece on Grealish a few months ago: https://danieldcollins.wordpress.com...jack-grealish/
Solihull-born Grealish qualifies, by virtue of his Ireland-born grandparents, to play for Ireland under littera (c) of article 7 of FIFA’s Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (although, having already represented Ireland competitively at under-age level, he remains entitled before being capped competitively at senior level to switch association once, under article 8, to England, for whom he is eligible by birth, in accordance with article 5). Article 7(c) is popularly referred to as “the granny rule” and the Football Association of Ireland’s perfectly legal use of it in order to facilitate members of the Irish diaspora in Britain has long been mocked by figures within British football as well as contemptuous voices, like Samuel, in the English media. Of course, unlike Irish nationality law, which is heavily influenced by the jus sanguinis principle, and the nationality law of other states, like Italy and those of continental Europe, that similarly have significant, identifiable and celebrated diasporas, British nationality law does not feature any provision for the inheritance of British citizenship beyond parentage or through grandparentage, so the Irish way perhaps seems a little alien to the British. Nevertheless, using the “granny rule” as a stick of ridicule with which to beat the Irish has been a means of asserting a distasteful and imperious sense of English superiority; since Jack Charlton in the 1980s first started selecting en masse England-born players for Ireland who were eligible on account of their Ireland-born parents and grandparents, Ireland have been derisively dubbed the “England ‘B’ team“. The term remains in use today given the still-frequent presence of a handful of England-born Irish nationals in Ireland international squads.
...
Whilst the UK may not allow for the inheritance of British citizenship through grandparentage, this does not mean that a significant number of other states within the international community do not formally appreciate this familial bond for the purposes of extending citizenship. It is their sovereign right to officially acknowledge such a bond and FIFA evidently concur.
The original and still the greatest Grealish to have donned the beautiful Irish jersey.
F*ck J*ck.
Radio Kerry had an exclusive interview with Kevin Grealish on Sunday in relation to Jack's decision: http://www.radiokerry.ie/sport/exclu...-grealish-dad/
Balls.ie had a bit on it here: http://www.balls.ie/football/jack-gr...england/311185
did someone steal Eamonn Sweeney's cornflakes this morning?? - http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-31580069.html
Think that's from a couple of days ago and presuambly what O'Neill was referring to below...
Angry O’Neill denies ‘prostituting’ himself in Jack Grealish pursuit
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