Republic of Ireland V Cyprus - Wednesday, 15th October 2008 - World Cup 2010 Q

[Billsthoughts]

1. Doyle
2. Dunne
3. Duff

Our top 3 players by a mile.

2nd half was how Trap wants it to be. It's his way. Very risky if you ask me. I'd rather have Reid in there and have about 5-10% more possession.

Anyway, delighted with the 3 points. Win our next 2 home games and we're 10 points ahead of Bulgaria with them having a game in hand.

Agree with all of the above especially the bit in bold. Way to risky from Trapp and think he will be caught out eventually. However 3 points is 3 points.

thought Mageady justified his selection ahead of hunt tonite on the basis that Hunts workrate was used as the main argument for his inclusion.

Macshane v poor.

Again thought the RTE panel were ott in their criticism.

[Drumcondra 69er]

Gibson looked well out of his depth. Centre mid is a big problem if Stephen Reid is injured, I'd have himself and Carsley as my first choice, Whelan's not getting enough football and it showed last night. Mate of mine was late so had to wait to give him his ticket, was walking up the steps to the stand when the goal went on, missed it by 10 seconds!

Dunne was immense, impressed with Duff and Doyle, thought McGeady had his best game in green although he should have buried that chance. O'Shea had a couple of dodgy moments but was solid enough as did McShane who wasn't solid , Kilbane solid enough, Robbie put in a good shift. Given solid again, happy with the 3 points, plenty of
room for improvement though. Andy Reid deserves a run against Poland if Trap doesn't trust him enough to play in a qualifier. Believe Dunphy was in full on rant mode....!

Lovely few pints after, great bit of craic in the pub, there's definitely a feel good factor growing. I can remember Charlton's team scraping results with iffy performances (2-1 at home to Luxembourg for example) and they were all forgotten once we qualified, hopefully this is the same. Other results are going our way, sometimes being a lucky manager is as important as being a good one. Typical Italian style, early lead and then don't make changes and see it out....

[Duggie]

Agree with all of the above especially the bit in bold. Way to risky from Trapp and think he will be caught out eventually. However 3 points is 3 points.

thought Mageady justified his selection ahead of hunt tonite on the basis that Hunts workrate was used as the main argument for his inclusion.

Macshane v poor.

Again thought the RTE panel were ott in their criticism.

there wasnt a selection issue of hunt over mcgeady. hunt isnt anywhere near the quality of mcgeady. he was class last night and unlucky didnt score.

[Billsthoughts]

I wouldnt say he was class by any stretch of the imagination. But he did enough to keep his place. also think he got a bad ball from Whelan which he made the most of for that shot on goal.

[Cortezuma]

Huge win and deserved one. This is NOT a bad Cyprus team. They are a genuine threat in this group and could have taken points off of Italy.

For the last time, however, Andy Reid is a media creation and nothing else. Stephen Ireland who is at least the player Reid is was destroyed against Cyprus because he is not a ball winner. Reid is not a ball winner either nor does he hold the ball particularly well.

Keane does not rate Reid so highly at Sunderland that he is willing to give up one of his defensive midfielders to accomodate him. Perhaps in a 5 man midfield he is an affordable luxury or maybe in a 4-4-1-1 otherwise he does not, and should not, play for this Irish team. Get over it and move on.

I wont be getting over it, or moving on. I would like to see some semblance of a passing game introduced into this new solid set-up.

Currently we are kicking the ball up to Doyle (or out of play if you are McShane or Kilbane) or our wingers are picking up the ball and trying to all our attacking on our own due to lack of support from the centre.

Football-wise, apart from our wingers play, this was atrocious football from us. Dunphy was right in a way saying Staunton would have been lambasted for this display. It's so unfortunate that the new driving force of the team going forward is so injury prone. Here's hoping for an injury free run for S.Reid.

I can understand Trapattonis reasoning for not playing Andy, but I hope he at least shows signs that he will give him a try when we play Poland.

Our biggest problem was players who have no confidence on the ball - due to mainly a complete lack of technique and touch.

Along with their terrible defensive displays, our full-backs, when they did get the ball more often than not put it over the touchline or gave it straight back to Cyprus. Absolutely woeful from both of them. McShane will have to do a lot at club-level to deserve a start again, and surely it’s time to stop the nonsense extension of Kilbanes international career.

The same can be said of Gibson and Whelan. 90% of their passes completed were short and back to a defender. They do look out of their depth as they barely touched the ball in the first half, and were not much better in the second.

I’d give O’Shea a 6 at best as his clearances and positioning were not as good as the last two matches. However, for once I will defend him, and say that he may have been affected by the headless chicken at right-back beside him, who seemed intent on coming inside to hang out with him when he should have been getting tight on Okkas or Garpozis.

The positives are enough to balance it out overall though, with the 1-0 win acceptable at this early stage. Excellent attacking performances but we will struggle against better teams if we keep getting our wingers to make their own space rather than creating it with the support of an attacking midfielder.

Also Kevin Doyle really is a legend, but lots of work needs to be done on how Keane plays with him. He keeps running into the same space and never picks up on Doyles frequent knockdowns.

[Duggie]

the thing is under staunton we wud prob have drawn the game or worse. we ground out the 1-0 win, wasnt pretty but its 3 points. next up 3 more points against georgia. oh and the polski's in nov.

[OwlsFan]

I felt the 2 full backs were the weak links, McShane moreso than Kilbane, but only because Kilbane wasn't as exposed. Constantly in the first half he was drifting into centre (which I've posted about before) and giving space to the opposing left winger. McShane was making the same mistake, drifting away from the touchline and giving the opposing winger space to move into.
.

Agreed. I was sitting low down in the middle of the Hogan stand. Full backs were losing their men or having the ball pinged over their head and scurring back. I thought Kilbane had one of his poorer games.

I have said it on numerous occasions, Whelan will not alas make the grade having seen him for a few years at Wednesday. But Trapp likes him and he fits in to his plans.

Not sure why some people gave Doyle 8 or 9 ratings. He worked hard but never really looked like scoring. Robbie pretty much disappeared in the 2nd half (as did the team for the first 20 minutes of that half). I think he was tired after the amount of chasing he had to do.

Cyprus are no mugs. In fact there are no mugs in our group and every game so far has been close for all teams. So let's be grateful for the 3 points in a reasonable performance - on another day it might have been 1-1 with that last minute scramble. Such is the fine line between success and failure.

[jmurphyc]

I'm happy with the three points in the context of Bulgaria's result. In the first half I thought we were very good but the second half we definitely could have done with more control from the central midfield particularly (but that extends to the whole team).

There are a number of things to work on but we have a friendly next, so things are good in that respect. We really need to improve our attacking set pieces and get our players to attack the ball in the box more. It's the same with crosses. There were plenty of times when crosses went into the box and there was either nobody in a good position or they just didn't attempt to get onto the ball.

I'm surprised by people giving McGeady such a high rating. I generally like him but last night I thought he was our worst player by a mile. He kept on losing the ball by not releasing it quickly enough. He beat his man numerous times and instead of passing it/whipping in a cross, he turned around and tried to beat the man again by which time he'd be surrounded. He needs to improve in that respect. Last night I thought he was a liability.

I'm very happy overall by how things have been shaping up under Trap, but the lack of substitutions surprises me. I thought numerous players were either tiring in the second half or were playing poorly and we could have done with some renewed energy to rejuvenate us.

All in all though, I'm very happy and had I been told that we'd be three points behind Italy with a game in hand after 3 games, and more particularly 4 points ahead of Bulgaria at this stage I would have bitten your hand off for it. That's the most important thing.

[SuperDave]

was i watching a different game? i thought mcgeady was tired and underhitting his crosses for the last half hour. he also continually chose the wrong option. his crossing was poor, and he kept running into the full back. late on in the game, there was a long ball forward which keane ended up in possession of and attempted to pass back to mcgeady, intending him to run onto it into the corner, but mcgeady was running towards the middle of the pitch! with two minutes left! what was obviously called for and what duffer did a couple of times was playing the ball into the corner and wasting time. robbie keane knew it, duffer knew it, but mcgeady didn't.

now i thought he had a good first half, but frankly he should have scored (had two good chances) and should have showed a little more football brain when his legs were tired (which they painfully obviously were) which he didn't. 8 for the first half, 5 for the second.

[Oink]

Pretty uneventfull game really, I never really worried about conceeding, they just didnt look like they were going to score... even with McShane.

The 2 lads in the middle were un creative but solid enough, it seems they went out with the no-nosense and no sloppy mistakes approach and to be fair the Cypriots didnt break through the middle even though they had a lot of the ball there.

I was pretty frustrated at the lack of substitutions. I would have liked to bring Reid and a quick forward on for Keane and Doyle, put Reid in the Tevez style role and try put their defence on the backfoot with a few nice through balls for the front man to run onto for the last 15 mins or so, I thought their defence was all over the shop in the last 20.

Doyle and Dunne were excellent, its the true mark of a good forward to make yourself a threat in a game where your teams not creating much. Doyle looks like he's pushing for a big club in January.

McGeady has the talent but his decision making is terrible, beat the man and whip the ball into the danger area and that's his job done, its up to the strikers to get on the end of it.... if he went out with that mentality he would be a nightmare to defend against. Last night he just slowed the momentum and either lost the ball or put in a poor late cross, his work rate was good though.

McShane has 2 bad feet, no matter which one the ball comes to it looks like its on his bad one..... no composure whatsoever.

[Den Perry]

I thought it was a poor performance....cyprus were missing three or four of their better players.

However, its a great start....as somebody pointed out above we at 1 point from 3 games when that other clown was managing us, we now have 7 from three.

In fairness, I think very few sides perform very well in qualifying tournaments.Last night was pretty poor, but I think under Trap that we will raide our game to whats necessary aginst the stronger opposition.Its all about doing enough to get there. The real performances come at the finals.

Whereas if you look back to the Clown's regime, the performances were not poor....they were farcical.

On another oint, what bugs me is the way a lot of media and Irish fans think that one/two good performances from a player means he is good enough.
eg Whelan - played very well in the opening two games(against very poor opposition) and everybody sdaying that he was the answer.I rem the same thing with Mcshane against Czech Rep. He was blown all out of proportion..(even though he was at fault for Kollers goal). Mcshane should not play again no matter how stuck we are. I would play around positionally with others to avoid having that calamity anywhere near our back four

[Claret Murph]

I have just read all the whole thread and what I can only say to sum it all up is

WIN , DRAW , WIN .= 7 POINTS

[irishfan86]

On another oint, what bugs me is the way a lot of media and Irish fans think that one/two good performances from a player means he is good enough.
eg Whelan - played very well in the opening two games(against very poor opposition) and everybody sdaying that he was the answer.I rem the same thing with Mcshane against Czech Rep. He was blown all out of proportion..(even though he was at fault for Kollers goal). Mcshane should not play again no matter how stuck we are. I would play around positionally with others to avoid having that calamity anywhere near our back four

While I agree with you on the fan/media reaction to McShane following the Czech match, I disagree with your view on Whelan.

I remember reading many posts here that were still a bit disgruntled with his selection in those two games.

While he received "man of the match" honours in both games (I believe?), I think the majority of us here had a feeling of what I would call "cautious optimism."

Even going into these games, a lot of people expressed concerns about his lack of first-team football, and the fact that he wouldn't be paired with Stephen Reid this time around.

Basically I disagree with your view that Whelan was ever blown up to be anything bigger than he was by more than a minority of the media/fans.

Most of us thought he was a serviceable player who could carry out a simple role alongside the more impressive Stephen Reid, but I didn't get the sense that anybody was expecting him to become a key player for us.

[Dodge]

First half was entertaining enough. Second half saw a poor Cyprus team pretty much dominate an Irish side with no midfield. Only shocking finishing from Cyprus saved trap from his first embarrassment (and drawing at home to Cyprus still should be an embarrassment).

Whelan is a poor sub championship player. Gibson may not even be that good. How McShane earns a living from football I'll never know. As ever Doyle's phenomenal work rate and Dunne's ferocious leadership helped drag Ireland through. Nice move for the goal too. If Duff could finish, he'd be unstoppable

[Kingdom]

Actually he said it a whole lot better than that, but I felt it deserved to be mentioned.

Tets can you be my official spokesman please!

I thought there was a lot of vision when we were on the counter-attack too.

One grumble though: the crowd. There was a stage in the second half when the team had calmed things and initiated the "keep-ball" phase that has been obvious (to me anyway) in the previous two games, yet as soon as the ball went back inside the crowd were baying for it to get hoofed up front.
There are a lot of idiots going to Ireland games.

[geysir]

Tets has to go pro

[jmurphyc]

Tets can you be my official spokesman please!

I thought there was a lot of vision when we were on the counter-attack too.

One grumble though: the crowd. There was a stage in the second half when the team had calmed things and initiated the "keep-ball" phase that has been obvious (to me anyway) in the previous two games, yet as soon as the ball went back inside the crowd were baying for it to get hoofed up front.
There are a lot of idiots going to Ireland games.

Yeah, that's a good point actually. The crowd was better last night but as usual there were too many people who couldn't be bothered to open their mouths. When we were struggling to retain possession the players really could have done with the crowd generating some atmosphere to lift their spirits but the crowd wouldn't do so until there was a good period of possession or an attack. It's a vicious circle. I guess I'm a bit peeved because it's particularly bad in the section that I'm in. For some reason the people around me are completely different each game yet I'm always in the same seat.

[Docboy]

One grumble though: the crowd. There was a stage in the second half when the team had calmed things and initiated the "keep-ball" phase that has been obvious (to me anyway) in the previous two games, yet as soon as the ball went back inside the crowd were baying for it to get hoofed up front.
There are a lot of idiots going to Ireland games.

To be honest I would have been one of those grumbling but it was more to do with the fact that we were showing Cyprus far too much respect. Perhaps given the 2 results in the last campaign the players have built them up to be a bogey team. Cyprus were there to got at, as seen pretty much any time we attacked. We're at home here and should be pushing for at least that second goal to allow us a little room to breathe.

Doyle was immense as was Dunne at the back. Once again Robbie did little, aside from the goal, but it's worrying that him and Doyle don't seem to be developing any understanding. Still, the group table makes for nice reading this morning.

[Duggie]

To be honest I would have been one of those grumbling but it was more to do with the fact that we were showing Cyprus far too much respect. Perhaps given the 2 results in the last campaign the players have built them up to be a bogey team. Cyprus were there to got at, as seen pretty much any time we attacked. We're at home here and should be pushing for at least that second goal to allow us a little room to breathe.

Doyle was immense as was Dunne at the back. Once again Robbie did little, aside from the goal, but it's worrying that him and Doyle don't seem to be developing any understanding. Still, the group table makes for nice reading this morning.

this amazes me. did little aside from the goal, eh the only goal of the game by the way. FFS what about his 34 other goals dwn the years and his tireless running in every game. if robbie gets injured in the big games then we are in trouble.

[geysir]

The only time I would grumble was with the breakdown passback to Given and then the hoof upfield. We are still novices at the knocking it about game.
Soon I'd hope that Given can find his full back with a pass and then Midfield appear to receive.