Ireland 3 Canada 0

[Condex]

Not a great game.

All it confirmed was that :
Andy Reid looks a tremendous prospect.
Duff is brilliant
what a carthorse Doherty is
Clinton Morrison is useless
defence is bloddy shaky
Shay Given makes a mistake a match

[Footie_Fan]

It was a case of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good Andy Reid had a great performance in the centre of midfield not as effective out on the right (out of position) - but truely deserved his man of the match the award.

Duff- One of the greatest individual goals by an Irish player by Duff. Is a class above the rest.

Keane - can frustrate the hell out of you but he knows where the goal is and doesn't need to be asked twice. Only three away from Quinn's record.

The Bad Stephen Reid - Anonymous for most of it. Can't put in a decent cross/pass. Not international class. Had shockers v Russia/ Turkey as well.

Morrison - Didn't look interested. We desperately need a decent partner for Robbie.

The Ugly Gary Doherty - Can't pass, No pace, No touch, No acceleration, wins less then half the balls hit long to him. Not second division class.

Random Thoughts
23000 - not bad. The bandwagon seems to be resting. No atmosphere.

Would have liked to see McPhail replace the very unlucky Kavanagh (who started well).

Ratings

Given- 7. Quiet enough night. Great save in the second half.

Carr- 4. Very poor. I counted at least 4 hospital passes. One of which put Given in alot of trouble. Only got forward once and S Reid didn't bother to pass to him.

Cunningham- 6.5. Solid.

Dunne- 6.5. Slow off the mark but great saving tackle near the end.

O'Shea- 5.5 Uninspiring. Just did enough and didn't put himself out.

A Reid- 8.5 See above

Duff- 8 See Above

S Reid- 3 See Above

Holland- 6 Decent outing for Holland in the centre. As usual did most of the simple things right.

Keane- 8. See Above

Doherty- 1(just for turning up) See Above

Harte- 5.5 Average performance.

Morrison-4 See above

Rest weren't on long enough.

[Slash/ED]

I thought, for a 3-0 win, it was a suprisingly poor preformance all round! I thought the players who felt they had something to prove went out and tried hard and played well, but the more 'assured of their places' players looked very lethargic and just not interested, and that accounted for most of the team.

The ratings...

Given - 7 - Didn't have much to do, made the one superb save he really had to.

Carr - 4 - Didn't seem interested. Rarely left his own half and was poor defencively.

O'Shea - 5 - Like Carr, only seemed to play slighltly better.

Cunningham - 6 - Not at his best, but not too bad either. Defence looked too shakey for me but he did alright.

Dunne - 5 - Made one good tackle at the end, was very poor espically in possession before that.

Andy Reid - 9 - Outstanding is the word. Some of the best passing seen in Lansedown since Liam Brady, would have liked to see him get the full 90 minutes.

Steven Reid - 6 - Anytime he looked to get going he seemed to get fouled, still worked hard and played alright.

Kavanagh - Wasn't on long enough to rate. Gutted for him really, he's waited four years for this match. Did alright when he was on.

Doherty - 0 - The worst preformance by a centre forward in Lansedown in recent memory. He's a centre half, starting him as a striker is an embarassment to the country.

Keane - 7 - Suprisingly low rating considering he scored twice but generally didn't look interested or sharp at all. Can't be too harsh on someone who scored twice, but he wasn't great I felt.

Duff - 8 - What a goal, absolutley stunning. Again though, only did it in sparks and most of the time didn't look like he was killing himself. Still very dangerous as ever.

Subs...

Morrison - 7 - Did everything Doherty didn't. Held up the ball well and brought others into play and looked a threat in the box, nearly took Keanes effort right off him and put it in himself!

Holland - 8 - his best preformance in recent memory. He was everywhere winning tackles. Where everyone else was lethargic, Holland was the opposite.

Delap - 7 - Less influencial then Holland, being on for less and moving position didn't help, had some good tackles and some strong running though.

McPhail - 5 - Didn't do alot, can't remember anything other then a nice looking but square passes really.

Harte - 3 - Even his left foot is deserting him. His passing was awful, gave the ball away alot and looked nervous inside his own half. Should have scored too, the Harte of a few years back would have had a shot at least from the position he found himself in late on.

Thompson - 7 - Only on for a few minutes but impressed me. Assured, good passing and looked strong. 7 is probably a bit high considering how long he spent on the pitch, so it's not really a mark over all, just based on his preformance in the little time he did have.

Colgan - 6 - Didn't have much to do, but was nearly made look daft by Radzinski.

Kilbane - 5 - Came on, gave the ball away a bit and generally didn't do much.

[Lionel Hutz]

A team of individuals out there tonight in my opinion with no clear game plan!

Was a big chance for Steven Reid but he failed to deliver!

Havnt been impressed with Carr recently and I would seriously consider Finnan as the number one in that position now.

Andy Reid did well and as usual Keane and Duff looked class operators.

We are crying out for another forward to lighten the load on Robbie as surely now Kerr can see that theres not much point playing Doherty up front from the start of the game!

Id be very worried about Ireland over the next couple of years judging by the last few performance, on another night Canada could easily have had at least two!

Cant remember ever feeling so deflated by a 3-0 win

[UCD_4_Life]

If we were playing a half decent team then we would've gotten beaten. When bloody Canada can cause your defence trouble you know you've got some serious problems...

Cunningham appears to be the only dependable player we have (though John O'Shea should get better and better as the years go by). I had to laugh at the Canada calling us "world class" after the match...

The crowd was a disgrace again, but hey, what's new?

I was watching "You're On Sky Sports!" afterwards and it brought up the usual annoying Irish people. We had a man from Derry who is a devoted West Ham fan, a man from Dublin asking what John Aldridge thought of Liverpool supposedly getting Rivaldo and somebody from Co. Westmeath who wanted to talk about how Scotland should go in gung-ho against the Dutch tomorrow "like the Irish did". Almost as good as the lad from Monaghan a few months ago who called the eL "less than conference standard".

[tricky_colour]

Its a shame Andy Reid had to wait this long for a game.
I think we would have qualified with him playing.
But then what do I know.

[Seanie]

I just hope Kerr will learn a few things from last night:
1. Never play Doherty up front again. Heroes like Quinn and Cascarino are no more. I reckoned Robbie Keane suffered.

2. When the prize is big it's worth the gamble - what I mean is look at Scotland. When the chips were down, Vogts put his faith in young inexperienced players like Fletcher and McFadden - and look how it has worked. Miller and Reid should have at least travelled to Basle.

[tiktok]

the crowd was actually better than i thought it would be, but it was like being at a funeral in terms of atmosphere. there were still more people than there will be seats in bucket-seat free landsdowne.

ratings...

Given_6: hard to judge, did what was asked of him
Carr_4: didn't get forward, no understanding with Reid
O'Shea_5: did ok, clean sheet and no scares will help confidence
Cunningham_6: what he did he did well, our best defender
Dunne_5: thought he did well enough, distribution was awful
S.Reid_5: had the pace to take on his man, didn't do it, poor
Kananagh_: he'll get another chance, unlucky
A.Reid_8: vision/pasing excellent, great movement, class act
Duff_8: has to stay on the left now, outstanding goal
Keane_7: took his goals well, looked sharp
Doherty_1: shouldn't have been on the field

Holland_8: best player on the field after Reid last night
Morrison_6: decent, has to start ahead of Doherty now
Delap_7: thought he did well, i'd like to see him more often
Harte_4: no real competition to O'Shea for the LB spot

[colster]

I didn't think we were that great last night. We never got out of 2nd gear. The canadians had chances but I felt we could have upped the tempo and would have won anyway.

I though Andy Reid was excellent. I think the trio of Duff-Keane-A.Reid could be absolutely brilliant for Ireland.
I have one concern though. Defensively he wasn't that great. They got through our midfield quite easily last night. We looked a lot more solid when Delap came on and Andy Reid moved to the right hand side. If we are going to play Duff and Andy Reid in midfield I think we need 2 good holding players.

Based on this I was wondering what team/formation people would like to see Ireland play in the next friendly. Where will the likes of Miller, Healy, Kavanagh fit in.

[NigeSausagepump]

Although it was a comfortable enough win in the end, I certainly got the feeling that any half decent European side would still give us a serious run for our money. We just didn't look capable of dominating what was very poor opposition and the performance was so limp it was bordering on the lifeless. We all complained after the Swiss game that there was no fight or passion in the side and even allowing for the fact that it was a friendly, the same charge can be levelled at yesterday's performance.

How many times in the past have we seen Irish teams punch above their weight because of their fire and passion - if we could only marry that with the undoubted skill some of our players have, we could really come along quickly.

[Dodge]

Healy's ****...

My irish team would be

Given
Finnan Breen Cunningham O'Shea
Millar Holland Reid Kilbane
Keane Duff

its a shame we don't have a striker to partner Keane

[Peadar]

Originally posted by Footie_Fan

The Bad Stephen Reid - Anonymous for most of it. Can't put in a decent cross/pass. Not international class. Had shockers v Russia/ Turkey as well.

Morrison - Didn't look interested. We desperately need a decent partner for Robbie.

Were you at the game?
If you were you mustn't have been watching it.
I disagree with you on both of the above.
Reid certainly wasn't anonymous. He worked hard and made some good runs off the ball. Anytime he got in possession he was hammered by the No.3 and/or No.4
He needs to work more with Carr but it's nothing that can't be fixed.

Clinton Morrison could never be accused of not being interested. He was very interested and very lively making some good forward runs and tracking back reasonably well.
His problem is that he's not as good as Keane or Duff and will never be. Can't really blame him for that. Being world class is rare in Ireland players.
You rated Harte higher than both of these players when he was an absolute liability. He'd be better off playing for Drogheda United where he might learn the basics of being a full-back.
He kicked at least 3 cross field balls directly to Canadian players. He made a good run in on goal but when the crowd roared "shoot" he changed direction and lost possession.
Only hard work by Dunne and Cunningham spared him from being shown up at the back by a team who looked seriously out of their depth.

[Ref]

crowd wasn't great really.

what would 23000 look like inside Croke Park?

not very impressive.

the tickets were the same price as the Euro 2004 Qualifiers - surely it would have made sense to reduce the prices and get more people in??

[Beavis]

Holland was magnificent yesterday.I was sometimes critical of him when he doesn't seem to want to get on the ball (probably the only time I've agreed with Dunphy!),but his defensive work often outweighs his lack of creativity.
Some of his tackles were brilliant and I see a bright future for him as our holding player,allowing Reid to do the ball work.

[ProfFrink]

Originally posted by Ref

the tickets were the same price as the Euro 2004 Qualifiers - surely it would have made sense to reduce the prices and get more people in??

At the UCD match last friday they gave away consessions and free passes for U-16s.

[pete]

Originally posted by Ref
crowd wasn't great really.

what would 23000 look like inside Croke Park?

not very impressive.

the tickets were the same price as the Euro 2004 Qualifiers - surely it would have made sense to reduce the prices and get more people in??

23k probably good when compared with similar games around europe this week.

Landsdowne is dire & better facilities would increase the crowd but it was also Canada afterall.

[Ref]

Originally posted by ProfFrink
At the UCD match last friday they gave away consessions and free passes for U-16s.

conversation in front of me last night - two middle aged men.

"John is Liam not with you tonight?" pointing to the empty seat.

"nah he can't afford it."

---

my ticket last night said €35. my ticket for ireland albania also said €35.

[Peadar]

Originally posted by Ref
my ticket last night said €35. my ticket for ireland albania also said €35.

Yeah I felt 23,000 was an astonishing turnout considering the calibre of the opposition, the depression after Euro2004 failure and the fact that it was a Tuesday in the middle of winter.

I don't really mind paying for the tickets but felt it was a genuine opportunity to get non regulars in by reducing the ticket prices. There was a teenager next to me with his kid brother and the kids excitement never diminished throughout the night. An awful lot of the game is lost in TV broadcasts. You can't beat a live game and there's nothing worse than empty seats.
With regard to the crowd being lost in Croke Park, realistically I think we would only have 2 World Cup qualifying games there. The rest could fill the stands of Lansdowne.

[niamh]

I thought of all people Kerr would have faith in the players he knows so well at the underage levels. His conservative choices have disappointed me.
Kavanagh should have played before yesterday. He has been in the form of his career for months now. At the end of the day it is who is playing regularly and playing well, in positions they play every week that counts.
Playing Harte, or even Doherty up front is crazy.

[Footie_Fan]

Originally posted by Peadar
Were you at the game?
If you were you mustn't have been watching it.
I disagree with you on both of the above.
Reid certainly wasn't anonymous. He worked hard and made some good runs off the ball. Anytime he got in possession he was hammered by the No.3 and/or No.4
He needs to work more with Carr but it's nothing that can't be fixed.

Clinton Morrison could never be accused of not being interested. He was very interested and very lively making some good forward runs and tracking back reasonably well.
His problem is that he's not as good as Keane or Duff and will never be. Can't really blame him for that. Being world class is rare in Ireland players.
You rated Harte higher than both of these players when he was an absolute liability. He'd be better off playing for Drogheda United where he might learn the basics of being a full-back.
He kicked at least 3 cross field balls directly to Canadian players. He made a good run in on goal but when the crowd roared "shoot" he changed direction and lost possession.
Only hard work by Dunne and Cunningham spared him from being shown up at the back by a team who looked seriously out of their depth.

I was at the match and I was watching intently.

You say Reid made good runs and was hammered by their defenders. Another way of looking at this is Reid wasn't good enough to get by their defenders and didn't have the confidence to try. If you think Reid played well, I would question your football intellect.

Morrison added little to the game. Dohertys performance made him look better than he actually was. Not playing for his club so sharpness was obviously an issue.

Harte was the only one of the full backs who got forward on any occassion. Did let one or two balls bounce he shouldn't have.