Originally Posted by Paddy Garcia
QuoteWeird game. Wrote this right after but never posted it…
France scored after 25 mins with the first real shot of the match.
First 15 mins you thought we were doing ok - winning a few frees and having our moments and not really conceding chances. They were definitely better but it felt competitive.
But in the window up to the goal it became evident how easy it was for the French. It was almost embarrassing. Just a totally different level. That continued for another 5 mins after the goal.
Then for the last 15 mins of the half, I felt we were clearly the better side. Patton could have scored 3. Missed a sitter to start the dominant period which he dragged wide. Had another decent chance, which he sliced wide and closed down a keeper where if he’d fully committed he’d have won it. You can’t really miss those chances at this level against that quality of side. You’d honestly think if Melia was playing, we’d have scored 3. We had another decent chance from I think McGrath as well to round off the half.
You’d question the logic of playing Ochoa Moloney out on left wing. He’s very good, and he used the ball well, held it, dribbled, but he was isolated, you’d want him playing centrally imo, at the expense of Razi, who had a decent game. Probably also a consequence of not having Kone-Doherty, Wade, Okosun, Orazi and Umeh available/in the squad - but still not the decision I’d have made.
Second half started ok, we had the odd bit of decent play, even if France were the better side, but we looked threatening at times. They hit the post from distance. At about 70 mins they won what looked like a dodgy penalty. Looked like Turley won the ball. France then continued to dominate and hit the post again.
We made a tonne of changes and it was petering out with France dominating until Aaron McLaughlin won a penalty with about 10 mins left, played in by a lovely long pass from Devaney. Cian Dillon sent it almost top corner, lovely penalty. The remainder of the half we closed down and pressed and tried to make something happen but France held out for the victory.
A bit hard to judge overall, cause it’s hard to know just how good that French team is. If it’s filled with a future Mpabbe, Saliba, Hernandez and Griezmann, then maybe we did well considering. I thought Cory O’Sullivan had a very good game. Romeo is a wonderful player but he’d want to find a way to dictate or influence games a little better, 90% of the time, when we had the ball, the game bypassed him, whenever he got the ball in dangerous areas, he did well, but it happened for less than it should have. Cathal O’Sullivan was bright too, even if the end product wasn’t really there. And Freddie Turley can really play. He had one Lawal like moment, where he carried the ball out from centre back, beat 3 or 4 lads, carried it about 40 yards and started a good attack.
Would have liked more of Devaney to see how he fitted in. I think we’ll learn a lot more in Game 2 of the window… Wasn’t particularly convinced by either Dillon or Patton - overall the strikers were just dominated by the French centre halves (maybe Nigel could tell us more, I saw the highlights of the Finn Harps v Kerry game and he looked a lot better, but I still think it’s probably roughly just Cian Kavanagh type ability). If I was Mohan, I’d be trying to convince Willam Martin - saw he’s playing with Denmark u18s during this window - not sure whether he was called up by us for u19s or ignored, he was left out of our elite squad in March to bring Michael Noonan up a year - Noonan will be with the 17s and Martin is now playing first team football in Denmark at 17. Certainly someone we wouldn’t want to lose for no reason. Also the fact, we don’t have an u18s team is an issue again.
I do often think Colin O’Brien is overaggressive calling u16s up a year ahead - I remember I think 2 years ago when 7 of the squad of 20 were underage including a 14 year old and there would have been 8/20 if Niall McAndrews didn’t pull out with injury) and of those 8 players, who are now u18s, how many started for the u19s today? Not a single one. Slightly disingenuous cause that’s perhaps more to do with injury and unavailability but it does show the risk if you’ve reduced your u17 class (now u19) down to 12/13 players, down the line at 19s and 21s - there can be depth issues:
Joe Collins - not selected I assume
Ade Solanke - with the 17s
Kaylum Harnett - on the bench
Matthew Moore - presumably still injured
Niall McAndrews - possibly injured
Ike Orazi - late pull out (injury?)
Matthew Murray - not selected I assume
Mason Melia - playing LOI
Makes total sense if they’re genuinely better than their counterpart a year older - but when you’re not including talented players at their expense, it can become counter productive.
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