It may have sat up nicely for you but it was well dispatched.Originally Posted by OneRedArmy
Well he must be doing on awful lot of shifting around in that grave with the carry on of the unions and all, never mind the footballWHAT????You winding me up man?? The serenity to accept what we can't chage?? Put up an shut up???..... Jim Larkin is rolling in his grave...
Harrumph!!!!
Had 4 friends over last night to watch a tape of the game. We had been in Paris so this was our first chance to review the whole thing.
Your hero, Laughing Bill,
(a) at the end of the game started a discussion on Trapp's tactics and said "we'll come back to the handball later" and the first segment of the discussion was about how the players (not Trapp) had devised the tactics for Paris.
(b) He then described the evening a "night of celebration" for Ireland
(c) Later on, after the ads etc when they EVENTUALLY got to the handball, he laughingly says "he handled it not once but twice" as if it was some kind of joke.
(d) Later he went on to Stephen England and said "should we not go down on one knee to get him back" and "that he was misunderstood" but he backtracked on that when the panel had a go at him.
(e) Then he ended with something like "we played like the panel have been saying we should have played all the time" and with his usual smug smile signed off.
Anyone tuning in would have been hard pressed to realise that Ireland had just been knocked out of the World Cup due to the most obvious handball since Maradona. Instead, as it has been for the past 20+ years, the panel, aided and egged on by the laughing buffoon, lead an attack on the incumbent Irish manager.
Thank God I was in Paris and didn't have to watch it. Grotesque, unbelievable, bizzare.
p.s. George Hamilton: "When Robbie Keane scores, we never lose except in Korea on penalties". Does he love tempting the fates?
pps. Doyle in the after match interview could barely hold back the tears despite Tony O'Donogue taking the lead from the panel and asking about "was it the players who decided to play the way we did"?
ppps. Looks like the defender got the slightest of knicks on the ball when Duff got through on goal.
Last edited by OwlsFan; 12/12/2009 at 12:44 PM.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Martin Hansson was interviewed on Swedish TV last night.
Wasn't much of an interview tbh but the main points were;
He said his name will always be linked to the game and it will be talked about for years.
He still has a chance to be a ref at the World Cup but does not want to speculate if he will be there. (The Swedish interviewer said it was his dream to ref at the WC but he didn't said that when he talked).
He is disappointed about what happened in the aftermath of the match - neighbours and family were contacted by British journalists. Apparently journalists were knocking on neighbours' doors late at night looking for Hansson.
He's not going to quit being a referee - his love for the game is too strong.
No sign of humility, regret or any recognition that he made a mistake? I didn't pick this up in his comments in November and I didn't pick them up from the post above.
Or the lino either.
Still they wouldn't want to return the'fruits of their labour', or even book that appointment with the optician.
The referee, linesamn and Thierry will go to hell. They are criminals, criminals...but seriously...the linesman is the only one I would fault and of course, we should have won it in normal time except we were not confident enought to take our chances as we were not given enough freedon previously to create such chances.
keanes chance was very difficult given the tight angles involved. he has never been good at one on ones. the defender did very well to get back at duff to deflect his chance and doyles header chance was nothing more than a half chance at best.
we created lots of chances over the campaign and scored 4 goals against the two finalists in the last wc final
Last edited by jbyrne; 15/12/2009 at 5:15 PM.
Are you sure about Doyle's header chance being (downgraded to) a half chance?
I hadn't the heart to watch the game again.
It was a lot more than a half chance. It was 3 times that. A chance and a half.
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
Yep, clearest cut chance of the lot, should have buried it.
Keith Andrews added his tuppence worth in a newspaper interview on Sat. Interesting to finally hear a player's perspective on the fall-out.
---
Among those Andrews now questions is the FAI, for its belated attempt to secure a replay and become the 33rd team at South Africa this summer.
"I don't even think there should have been us as a country asking for replays and for us to be added as an extra team. I think we should have just left it and let everybody resent the French, the referee and the whole of FIFA. We don't want anybody's sympathy. I certainly don't."
well said Keith Andrews.
Yep. Well done Andrews.
Folding my way into the big money!!!
Well said Keith Andrews.
Ireland had numerous chances to kill the game and didn't take them and after Keanes appalling miss the game was up for Ireland and we never looked like scoring after that in fact the French were getting closer and closer to scoring in the end. If it went to peno's I honestly couldn't see Ireland winning it. FACT is we didn't take our chances to win the game. The 'handball' was heartbreaking but in all honesty if it were the other way around would we be as sel-rightous and outraged at cheating in the game?
he has a good point Andrews. He was probably the player who came out the Paris game with the most credit and my heart broke to see him crying at the end. But there is no point in sugar coating it, we lost a lot of credit worldwide for that silly 33rd team request. From having the support of the world, we quickly became a laughing stock with many. The only saving grace was the manner inwhich Blatter said it to the world. The worlds attention was completly against the French and we ****ed it up
But the "request" was only one of a number of topics discussed in a private behind closed doors meeting, it should never have been in the public domain.
The mistake was to trust Blatter who used it to make the FAI look like they were idiots and the subsequent appology from Blatter and the FAI's comments have been on deaf ears, Blatter got the reaction he wanted by making Ireland look pathetic to divert the attention from the real serious issues raised by the FAI with regard to refereeing appointments and the use of technology.
Yapster, bringing your anti-Keane bias over from footymad I see.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Doesn't matter that the "request" was made privately in a closed doors meeting. It shouldn't ever have been made at all when the FAI knew full well it was a ridiculous proposal which would never be accepted. Yes Blatter was a knob for ridiculing Ireland with it, but the FAI are bigger fools for giving him the chance to do it.
It's time we simply faced up to the fact that Ireland are out of the World Cup due to our failure to get a second goal in Paris. Even with that Henry handball goal, we would still have won the tie on away goals had Keane or Duff put away those chances.
How do you know the context in which it was raised or discussed? Blatter made a sly off the cuff remark knowing full well the press would lap it up.
But think of UEFA allowing England 5 teams in the CL when Liverpool won it and finished 5th in the EPL, they had to change their rules to allow them to defend their trophy and made changes to the rules for future instances.
It may well have been that it was part of an opening gambit which would clearly fail but by raising the bar the FAI might have felt they would get something more substanbtial from the meeting.
I don't blame them for the behind door discussions, I do blame them for being trusting of Blatter and not having the discussions iron clad in secrecy.
And I agree if Duff or Doyle or Keane had taken their chances we wouldn't have had to worry.
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