In all fairness it was a gutsy second half performance. True. But at the end of the day our passing and technical ability let us down. We cannot retain the ball in close quarters and those responsible for coaching our kids can't teach them how to do it. There will be no future for Irish football until we address that problem.Originally Posted by geysir
Last edited by mark12345; 29/03/2015 at 9:25 PM. Reason: typo
Don't know where the optimism from Giles and Dunphy came in the post-match, like this was some great performance. I want to be enthusiastic as much as anyone. Maybe our dismal opening 30 minutes clouded my judgment for the rest of the match, but I was watching thinking we won't qualify and there wouldn't be much use in us doing so anyway.
Losing away to Scotland and now dropping 2 pts at home to Poland, we've put ourselves up against the wall from here on out.
One positive was that Poland hardly had any chances on goal . We brought the goal on ourselves, should've been a clean sheet(although they did seem to stop going forward after the goal).
That was a real leap out of your seat moment when we scored.
Ireland have the players to beat Poland at home. That negativity must have been instilled in you from the trap era.
It wasn't great football it was certainly a lot better than anything I've seen before in the aviva from us. We certainly kept going at them but we were playing crosses and high ball when no one in there who is known for their headers.
Wes did well but a better team or even a more motivated team would have punished at least a couple of his mistakes. Still maybe we need him in there regardless.we still never tried to play it through the middle. Our crossing was woeful and I hoped that wes would give Coleman and Brady the overlap more with 1-2s but it didn't happen.
I thought before we would play well and get the draw and I think I said so on here too but the draw isn't really good enough. I can't see us beating Scotland at home.
I thought we got the least we deserved. Poland were ok and scored after a gift from Brady. They had two chances all game plus a few good moments but the second half performance was good enough for the draw and a bit of luck might have seen a win.
Keane doesn't have the legs anymore from what I saw and he was even mentally off the pace, failing to anticipate anything. McCarthy just about came good but bar a few good tackles he just didn't do enough on the ball. Fahey uses the ball with more purposes. I thought Whelan was good by and large, doing more on the ball than mccarthy. McClean changed the tone and did very well. That tackle was as good, if not better, than the legendary Keane tackle on Overmars.
Great finish by Long, a shame he wasn't on longer. Silly foul at the end, the one he always gives away, but I'll forgive him.
We're still in contention but we need to start winning games.
The best summation I can give as to why we lost is that Brady, who is not a full-back by nature, made a mistake and we over-relied on high balls to Walters, who is not a target-man by nature.
Ole is in for a shock when he finds out that JOSH scored against Germany as well in the closing moments.
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Overall I was delighted with our attitude in the second half. Ref was a disaster and the Poles were very poor. That game was there for us if we didn't concede the goal in the first half. We need Germany to take this group by the scruff of the neck now and let us at the Scots and Poles again.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Haha christ.... Freduian slip due to the fact that a draw in what was dubbed a must-win game is a loss.
We showed Poland far too much respect especially in the first half. Robbie Keane is a spent force end of story. We simply can't afford a slow start against Scotland. Two points dropped tonight.
So we got a draw that felt like a win but needed a win, so it could be viewed as a loss but even though we didn't win, the draw keeps us in the race but not quite as much as win would have... Simple really.
It was huff and puff against a team who were a goal up, who stood back to hold on, who conceded most of the field and when finally we equalised, they even had the temerity to take possession of most of what little remained of the game.
I don't know why it's like this but we are competing for 3rd and 4th spot and atm we are in 4th spot.
Beat Scotland at home. Baby steps and all that.
There is no such thing as a miracle cure, a free lunch or a humble opinion.
<MOD EDIT - quote of deleted post removed>
The Joker?
Astonishing to describe a manager that had a very average (on paper) Celtic team into one which came very close to winning the Uefa Cup, and beat the likes of Barcelona and Juventus during his tenure at Parkhead. A brilliant manager is Martin O'Neill and he has a pretty brainy footballer in his assistant also. What he has working against him however is the lack of depth in the Irish squad, the absolute lack of ability among too many of his players, and a scarcity of upcoming talent to work with.
Last edited by tetsujin1979; 30/03/2015 at 12:37 AM.
Sums it up pretty well. If 4th place would secure a playoff, we'd find a way to be languishing in 5th.
I didn't want a draw before the game, so I don't think the result is quite something to celebrate. Well, certainly not like the way Dunphy was going on in studio afterwards anyway. He'd gotten so carried away, he thought we'd won until Liam reminded him it ended 1-1! I suspect Dunphy went overboard due to the delight of witnessing a seeming shift in philosophy (and it having borne at least some fruit) after years of exasperation under Trap and then O'Neill's cautious beginnings. A shift is something to applaud and I can empathise to a degree, but our present position in the group should be quick to bring one back down to earth. We're in fourth position at the half-way point. The Scotland game will be a cup-final winner-takes-third-place type of situation now.
First half, we were limited and ineffective. I feared we were in for a long night of fruitless, paining and draining huffing and puffing. We didn't look like we felt we needed to win, nor did it look like we were set up for a victory. There was no urgency or tempo.
There are positives though. We showed that we can up our game and our second-half performance/effort was much, much improved. We were a completely different side. As O'Neill said, we deserved at least a draw, all things considered. We ended with 57 per cent possession and 13 efforts on goal to their 6. We had 3 on target whilst their goal was their solitary effort on target. We had 5 corners to their 1. Poland admittedly sat back after they scored, but we showed good endeavour and intensity too in response. It's up to us to take advantage of opportunity and we did that. We made them look very ordinary and, although we failed to create anything seriously clear-cut, we really should have beaten them after such a dominant second-half. They were utterly non-creative themselves and I can't imagine too may Poles being pleased with their team's performance, even if it was an away match. Glik was talking us down in an interview before the game and bigging up Poland's supposed superiority; that certainly wasn't evident.
We'll beat Scotland at home if we play like we did in the second half tonight, so that is something from which comfort can be taken. We're fighting for third place now, but I think it's still a realistic possibility considering we showed we are capable of getting through the remainder of this group unbeaten. That was what I needed to see; intensity, dynamism and desire. The most depressing and frustrating thing under Trap was the complete lack of a plan B when ultra-conservative plan A clearly wasn't working, but O'Neill has proven that he can at least make the changes that are required or that he is at least prepared to try something different. He is flexible.
O'Neill did comment post-game that had we had a few more minutes, we might have won the game; perhaps another way of looking at it would be to say that had he brought Long on earlier, we mightn't have needed those extra few minutes. Long might have been able to do more damage had he been given the time to do so. Albeit late (and better that than never), the changes were very positive and made a huge difference nevertheless; I hope that inspires confidence in playing more positively in future, even if it does happen to be riskier. I think most supporters would prefer the latter though. The second-half was tense and refreshing; anything but mind-numbing. It would have been fun if it weren't for the fact we just couldn't get the ball in the bloody net for so long. The crowd responded with appreciation and it is that sort of adventure that will re-capture the public's imagination. I'm all for it!
Robbie simply wasn't in the game up front; not his fault being left alone up there like that, especially at this stage of his career. McCarthy was almost anonymous in the first-half too, but that was down to us by-passing midfield and being unable to string anything meaningful together. Walters and Whelan did what Walters and Whelan do. Coleman was more influential and daring in this game than in any game I've seen him play for us before. He should have done better with the stinging shot he skited wide but I think Robbie kind of put him off in front of the ball and that hindered his run-up; you'll have seen that Séamie stalled or hesitated ever so slightly in his approach which indicated that he couldn't have been 100 per cent focused on connecting cleanly with that ball. Just uncertainty really as to where Robbie was going. If they were club team-mates with a chemistry from weekly experience together, Robbie would have known to be well out of his way and that would have been in the back of the net. Hoolahan impressed me again throughout. McGeady was obviously lacking match-sharpness, although had he scored that chip, it would have been an absolute beauty; he made fools of two Polish defenders in the build-up and probably could have somehow contrived a penalty out of that had he been more cynical. I felt bad for him coming off. His body language said it all; he looked mentally beaten despite O'Neill's attempt to put an arm around him in consolation. At that point, my hope was nearing evaporation too.
Brady had a really poor game. I was surprised to see him start at left-back and had thought Wilson might play there with Clark getting the nod in the centre. He was very much at fault for their goal though and his dead-ball delivery was abysmal on numerous occasions. O'Shea looked eager to make himself as small as he possibly could when they scored. You'd like to see your defender trying to make himself big to block there, but I suspect he must have felt Given had the angle covered and was wary of a shot potentially taking a wicked deflection off him and going in. I don't think Wilson could have done much in the lead-up to their goal. He was put in a desperate situation; very stretched and over-run by two men. The finish was very precise though; couldn't have been placed better.
Our defence did OK otherwise; they weren't really challenged besides that and Given didn't have much to do all game. I was happy he started though and would feel more secure with him there in place of Forde, who would actually be my third-choice. Both subs did well and helped raise the game; McClean for his tenacity and directness and Long for his movement and swiftness of foot. I loved James' cruncher soon after he'd come on. He'd promised us that during the week and he duly delivered. Stuff like that really makes a difference psychologically both on and off the field; it helped bring the crowd into the game more and get them behind the team.
I thought the ref was pretty poor, blowing up for nonsense throughout. He was booking Ireland players all night for little, niggly b*llocks, yet the Pole who took Coleman clean out after a race for the ball in the first-half got away without a card. I think the ref also somehow gave a foul against a Walters struggling to stand with two men crawling all over him. At least we got 5 minutes of injury time for the faffing around, although we could have had another few minutes, to be honest.
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 30/03/2015 at 4:21 AM.
Ridiculous comment. O'Neill is an intelligent, inspiring and honest manager who has a real respect for the players under him and who knows how to motivate them. That's not to mention his impressive record. There are certainly questions to be asked and things still to be proven, but to call him a "joker" and a "spent force" is just petty. Someone would nearly think you were bitter he wasn't selecting a certain centre-back!
And when something keeps happening over and over again, you can more likely put it down to design than chance.
He got an elbow on the head which left him in a lot of pain and then about 15 minutes later he looked really dazed again after having attempted a header but completely miscalculating. Surely he wasn't still feeling the effects of the elbow then, was he? Or did the ball clip him on the top/back of the head or something? I didn't see it closely.
What's your theory? Is it psychological? We don't have the bottle to hammer it home and do it convincingly? We play safe unless we really, really have to push for something more?
Last edited by DannyInvincible; 30/03/2015 at 4:17 AM.
Lovely review Danny..
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
Just re-watching Paszko's goal in tricky's video and I'm wondering could Wilson have just knocked the ball out for a corner instead of trying to drag it back and into his possession? I suppose it's easy to suggest that in hindsight. Defenders will always want to avoid giving away a corner and I don't think he was really expecting Peszko to be oncoming so quickly. Brady was sleeping even after he'd put Wilson in trouble in letting the eventual goalscorer get ahead of him; downright poor from him throughout the whole sequence, from beginning to end.
He was, yeah, complete absence of natural defensive instinct from him throughout that whole passage of play.
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