Republic of Ireland V Italy - Saturday, 10th October 2009 - World Cup 2010 Q

**tetsujin1979** · 11/10/2009, 10:39 AM

the sound of 75,000 people saying nothing for the last few minutes will haunt me for years.
when I recover and sober up I'll post something approaching a reaction

**Comic Book Guy** · 11/10/2009, 10:45 AM

After I got home from the game I watched the RTE recording of it and listening to Dunphy's analysis I wondered was I at the same game. I thought Ireland kept their shape well. In the 2nd half Italy forced only one save of note out of Given.
Have to agree that the atmosphere for those 3 minutes after Ireland's second was something else and came close to the atmosphere in September 2001 against Holland.
I thought McGeady had a very good first half and at times turned the Italians inside out but frustratingly held on to the ball a little too much. He faded badly in the 2nd half.
As for the Italian equaliser why was JOS so far up the field, also when they were breaking out for their second goal one of our players should have taken a card on him. I think that Trap alluded to that in one of his post match interviews.

**Stuttgart88** · 11/10/2009, 10:47 AM

Yeah, that 3 minutes was unbelievable. It may be naff, but in the right time & right place Ole Ole can be quite brilliant.

Disappointed though but not as gutting as previous late goals.

We have nailed on second place and can show that we can compete against good teams - without a decent CM - and we are now finally a reliable threat from set pieces.

Will the draw vs. the win affect our ranking by much, and also our UEFA 2012 seeding?

Bring on the play offs.

**Stuttgart88** · 11/10/2009, 10:52 AM

Is itn heresy to be critical of Shay for the equaliser? I thought he went down too early. If he'd set his feet for a reaction save he'd have saved it comfortably. Instead he tried to anticipate where Gila would put it I think. Good goal in fairness.

**geysir** · 11/10/2009, 11:00 AM

re Dunphy screaming, "the Italians are rubbish" etc.
How does this guy, who would even be an embarrassment in a Jerry Springer audience,
manage to still be accepted as a pundit on national tv?
is sport that popular with the retarded, that we have to have pundits to "articulate" on that level?

**NeilMcD** · 11/10/2009, 11:04 AM

Those were the best 3 minutes I have had since I last had sex.

**sligofan4ever** · 11/10/2009, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by geysir

re Dunphy screaming, "the Italians are rubbish" etc.
How does this guy, who would even be an embarrassment in a Jerry Springer audience,
manage to still be accepted as a pundit on national tv?
is sport that popular with the retarded, that we have to have pundits to "articulate" on that level?

Dunphy never, ever, has anything good to say. May it be World Cup Qualifiers, Euro Championships or The Champions League, nothing but the same old negative sh!te flows out his gob, it was a decent performance from us against Italy, but he just uses his time to talk to say nothing worth while, not that anyone cares what he has to say. Lads just have a quick question, why does Graeme Souness do analysis and pre match build up for us on RTE ? He has no connectin to the Irish team.

**Razors left peg** · 11/10/2009, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by sligofan4ever

Dunphy never, ever, has anything good to say. May it be World Cup Qualifiers, Euro Championships or The Champions League, nothing but the same old negative sh!te flows out his gob, it was a decent performance from us against Italy, but he just uses his time to talk to say nothing worth while, not that anyone cares what he has to say. Lads just have a quick question, why does Graeme Souness do analysis and pre match build up for us on RTE ? He has no connectin to the Irish team.

sometimes its not a bad idea to get some neutral perspective, but I just wish he would come up with something new rather than keep going on about how we shouldnt expect any thing more with average players, its all he ever seems to say

**CF1989** · 11/10/2009, 11:33 AM

hes dead right though. he's giving an honest opinion. andrew and whelan give you nothing football wise. hes better than the other 2 clowns

**Razors left peg** · 11/10/2009, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by CF1989

hes dead right though. he's giving an honest opinion. andrew and whelan give you nothing football wise. hes better than the other 2 clowns

yeah but we have plenty of very good players too

**tetsujin1979** · 11/10/2009, 11:46 AM

reaction from RTE online here: http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/

**Noelys Guitar** · 11/10/2009, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by CF1989

hes dead right though. he's giving an honest opinion. andrew and whelan give you nothing football wise. hes better than the other 2 clowns

Disagree. I thought Whelan had an excellent game and the only reason he was taken off was to stop him being sent off. He was getting very close to a second yellow with two crunching tackles in quick succession. It will be very hard to dislodge this guy from the team as he keeps improving for both club and country. Andrews on the other hand did not have a good game and seemed to me to be off the pace a bit. As a side note it was interesting to hear St Ledger mention that Shay Given had told him to go forward for the Hunt free kick leading to the second goal. Shay seemed to be driving the team on for that winning goal (rightly in my opinion) and maybe we got carried away when we then tried to get a third goal rether than defending deeply for the last few mins. By the way I believe we can improve again on this performance.

**rambler14** · 11/10/2009, 11:59 AM

Keith Andrews was very poor last night and was really shown up by De Rossi and Pirlo.
I thought the back 4 were brilliant. Kilbane was solid out as was O'Shea (who was way too far forward for the 2nd Italian goal). St.Ledger was the better of the two centre-backs as I thought Richard Dunne was second to a lot of ball.
Robbie Keane and Doyle may as well had been at home.....did nothing.
Liam Lawrence was outstanding and Whelan did everything night except for his passing.

**youngirish** · 11/10/2009, 12:19 PM

Thought it was a good performance. We never looked like losing the game imo. We still can't hang onto a lead though a problem that goes all the way back to Kerr's reign. This could cost us in the play-offs.

Regarding the play-offs I can't believe some of the nonsense regarding people stating they'd prefer France over Russia and Portugal. France are the last team I'd want in the play-offs they are guaranteed to beat us over 2 legs when it matters. Ribery, Anelka, Benzema and Henry would rip our defence apart. They have the best players by far of all the teams in the play-offs.

I'd like to get Greece preferably but Russia also are not as good as people are making out. They blow very hot and cold and only have a handful of very good players. We are capable of holding them to a 0-0 draw away and taking them back to Croke Park and beating them.

Saying that I think we will struggle against anyone in the play-offs as we still look incapable fo beating any half decent team.

**irishultra** · 11/10/2009, 12:45 PM

whelan is good, a decent player, alongside a good midfielder(like Steven Reid) he would be quite good however Andrews is rubbish. His inclusion makes no sense. I'd go as far to say he should be on the periphery of the squad with players like Fahey, McCann, Reid, James McCarthy and a good few others ahead of him.

**Razors left peg** · 11/10/2009, 12:51 PM

Originally Posted by irishultra

whelan is good, a decent player, alongside a good midfielder(like Steven Reid) he would be quite good however Andrews is rubbish. His inclusion makes no sense. I'd go as far to say he should be on the periphery of the squad with players like Fahey, McCann, Reid, James McCarthy and a good few others ahead of him.

He cant even get in the Wigan squad at the moment so he seems a long way from international football at the moment.McCann is injured and I dont think Fahey has be substantially better than Andrews in the Premiership this season... that said, I do think he needs replacing in the team

**shakermaker1982** · 11/10/2009, 1:31 PM

"A terrible, shameful performance" - E Dunphy. What an absolute ****.

**jaykay** · 11/10/2009, 1:32 PM

Originally Posted by Comic Book Guy

After I got home from the game I watched the RTE recording of it and listening to Dunphy's analysis I wondered was I at the same game.

I agree, Dunphy is a sad,repetititive, negative blight on the rte 'analysis' team. He constantly insults the supporters. I watched the rte web analysis and caught the end with Beglin and Hamilton saying it was s great performance, which I agree with. Then Dunphy dismissed them out of hand and went on a tirade.

Lawrence had a super game, and Whelan made a few mistakes, but did some great work defensively off the ball. I thought Doyle had a better game than Robbie. St Ledger was very solid apart from that little bit of space he gave for the last minute equaliser. I was a bit disappointed with Given - possibly could have done better for the goals, and his long kicks seemed aimless at times, even when he had Best as an obvious target.

There is a fantastic spirit in the team, and they should go into the playoffs with no fear. Rest the yellow carded lads on Weds (I don't think even a win will get us 2nd seeds in the Euro qualifiers, so its a bit of a nothing game).

The crowd were brilliant on the night, as always when they are given something to shout about! What an atmosphere for those glorious 3 minutes!!!

Roll on the Playoffs and hopefully Greece.

**irishultra** · 11/10/2009, 1:39 PM

Dunphy is just an awful pundit. Listening him on the Champions League coverage is so annoying. Every season he comes out with the same stuff about the same English clubs. I mean his Ronaldo bashing just got tedious at the end.

'Italy are useless' just about sums up the depth of his analysis. He's a joker. I never watch their analysis anymore. They're not 'cutting edge' or anything like it, its a poor panel, which is past its sell by date.

**lopez** · 11/10/2009, 1:39 PM

Originally Posted by youngirish

We still can't hang onto a lead though a problem that goes all the way back to Kerr's reign. This could cost us in the play-offs.

It's a problem that goes back further to Holland in 2000, Macedonia and Turkey in 1999 and Belgium in 1997 (In fact Poland 1991 also comes to mind).

This is one area we need to address. I also agree that someone should have chopped down an Italian on that move, and picked up a card, but then if we got the win yesterday, we would have needed a strong team on Wednesday to win the group, and there were a number of players likely to miss it.

Personally I'm happy with a draw yesterday. Watching the game I was cr*pping myself when St. Ledger went up. I thought, lose it, quick break out and we're finished. We have some serious problems in defence, particularly the full backs, and in a midfield that is failing to get the ball off a team that upped the tempo in attack. Without this being solved, yes, that will cost us in the play-offs unless we take a three or four goal lead.