France (H) match discussion thread

[drinkfeckarse]

More than capable of winning the last 2 games as long as we don't get too downbeat about the result last night.

A draw would've been a fair result, there was a lot of huff and puff from both sides without creating an awful lot. It was always going to need a moment of magic from someone to win it and the odds were on the French doing it considering the amount of possible matchwinners they had.

We played well though I thought and RMK was very good.
My marks out of 10.

Given-7.5, Carr-6, Dunne-7.5, Cunningham-7, O'Shea-5.5,

Reid-6.5, Kilbane-6, Keane-8, Duff-6,

Morrison-6, Keane-6.

[stickyjoe]

thought we played well last night defending but we never looked like scoring. should still get the wins we need. but when was the last time this Irish team beat anybody that was a half decent team in a competitive match? holland 2001 it was i think. since then we havent beaten russia,switzerland,france,israel and the swiss again.

atmosphere last night was super for once. how did it come across on the telly?

[Cosmo]

I thought we played well last night and didn't deserve to lose. However in saying that there were a couple of disappointing performances from people we needed on their game if we were going to win. Duff for one - unfortunately didnt produce a piece of magic that we know he can do (difference between a win and not winning) and robbie keane was poor too (big fan of his though).

Refuse to buy a paper today cos im sure at least 1 will run with the story that robbie keanes poor performance was down to having a few pints last friday - i dare 1 paper to say it, f**king wan*er journalists .

Doherty is muck - Doyle wouldve done a better job than him.

Kerr will probably get loads of stick, doesnt deserve it imo. If robbie keane hadnt have got injured against israel at home we wouldve beaten them and be in a far better position. Unlucky lastnight.

Still confident that we'll win our last 2 matches - havent really looked at the table and worked out all the scenarios so sont know if that will be enough for 2nd spot

[paul_oshea]

i think it was myself and terryphelan who were the realists. i didnt think we would lose 2 or 3 nil but i thought a couple of minutes of magic from zidane would create the win for them....i was wrong....it was zidane. the best team lost in my opinion, henry had about 4 touches and once chance last night, but its the optimism i spoke of yesterday that i beleived was unfounded. eirebhoy may come back with his statistics and the likes, but at the end of the day we lost. it was extremely hard to take last night, i am still depressed over the result but i was very happy with the way we played last nite. keane and reid were quality in my opinion. Gallas had duff in his pocket. that keane "penalty" chance in fairness wasnt a penalty, but morrisons shirt was being tugged for his shot which i thought should have been a penalty.

fair play brian kerr. you made up for the other games. if only we had played like that against israel.....

[drinkfeckarse]

Gallas had duff in his pocket.

Did he???? I thought Duff played on the left with Reid on the right....considering Gallas played at left back that would mean he was marking Andy Reid...

[Albert]

Very tough to take the result last night I felt we definately deserved something from the game. We just didnt have a Henry for a touch of magic, and it always looked like that is what it would take. Given did well enough, he is not the greatest keeper ever but he is good and I dont think he could be faulted last night. Carr gave his all but seemed to me to tire towards the end. Considering Dunnes history I thought he put in a good performance again he is not a top class defender but he did his job in the main. Cunningham was excellent and as always raises his game in an Irish shirt even though he is quite limited overall. O'Shea, not great but I lost faith in his abilities long ago so Im just happy he didnt have any howlers. Robbie Keane was poor for me but then I can hardly remember the last time I thought he had a good game so its a bit much to expect him to pull it out of nowhere against France when he cant make the spurs team, but in fairness he did try and the same goes for Morrission, struggling at club level but he put his heart into it. Roy Keane as always the only really top class act that we posess how I wish he was 10 years younger! So considering the players we have you look to the only 20 million rated player we have they guy who plays regularly and plays with the premiership champions......Duff. AWOL last night and Im sorry but I dont think thats acceptable from him on an occassion last night, His tackiling was poor, he made very few runs and rarely took people on, for me he was more concerned with avoiding Injury and because we needed something special I felt that he was the worst performer in an Irish shirt and was very let down. Thats several games now where he has done poorly to OK and considering how highly he is rated thats just not good enough. Also thought Finnan should have come on for Reid who tired and to be honest Reid incrreasingly looks over rated too, decent but by no means a magical unlocker of defences

[fosterdollar]

fair play brian kerr. you made up for the other games.

He still hasn't the bottle to see it through to the end. Doherty is way off the standard required. Why isn't Elliot being given some experience at least? Are we going to persist with that mad ape up front?

[EnDai]

Sagnol was marking Duff.

[VinnyL]

the fcuker!!! that is NOT on, write to the FAI and complain about him, he will be banned from lansdowne, and then i and many other decent supporters who make supportive noise will move up the waiting list...

Please write in about him, you have witnesses, it is not fair that d!cks like him have tickets

i have full intentions of writing/emailing them... who do i write to in the FAI?? do you reckon they'll even take it seriously. so ashamed that if this a***hole it was great the way we all turned on him though. he didnt sing 1 irish song for the whole game either...

[brine3]

They had two or three on Duff most of the time.

[Slash/ED]

Kerr did nothing worthy of praise, the moment he brought on Doherty all hope was lost.

[Dotsy]

I though both teams played very poorly last night and a draw would have been a fairer result. We needed all our top players to play well and unfortunatley while RMK and Given played very well, Duffer and Robbie were poor. I thought we gave them too much space to build from in their half and should have put them under more pressure higher up the field. Especially in the second half they had too much possession of the ball and are alway us likely to hurt you with a moment of genius in that scenario. Once we went behind I just couldn't see where we were going to get a goal from. We made no effort to play the ball out wide and just hoofed balls up to Doherty. I would have liked to have seen Elliott come on for Morrison (who I thought played reasonably well but seemed knackered when he was subbed but it could just as easily have been Robbie who was replaced).

We can win our last two games but it is going to be difficult. I think it would be madness to replace Kerr at this stage of the campaign. If we don't make the play offs then I think that would be the time to make a change. At this stage Switzerland haven't done anything more than us to deserve the playoff place.

[deego11]

i have full intentions of writing/emailing them... who do i write to in the FAI?? do you reckon they'll even take it seriously. so ashamed that if this a***hole it was great the way we all turned on him though. he didnt sing 1 irish song for the whole game either...

Thats absolutely awful people like that should deffo not be given tickets in the future. Email the FAI at info@fai.ie and mark it for the attention of the ticket office. They have details of where all tickets are sent to. At least they will know which football club got that ticket!

[patsh]

Kerr did nothing worthy of praise, the moment he brought on Doherty all hope was lost.

Agree.
When any oppostion team sees Doherty coming on, they must know its the same thing as admitting defeat.

[lopez]

Kerr did nothing worthy of praise, the moment he brought on Doherty all hope was lost.

Absolutely. It's one thing for an international not making the Scumski first team and playing for Ireland, and another not playing for Norwich. Elliot would have done no worse that Doherty. The man needs to decide if he's a defender or a forward.

Losing to France is not the problem (seeing we picked up a point in Paris). It will be the four points lost to Israel that will prove decisive. Unless the Swiss beat France (which I doubt) then winning the next two games would give us a play-off place - something we would have thought was our best hope a year ago. However I wouldn't put money on this side beating either, such is Kerr's inability to win games against even mediocre opposition in their own back yard or half decent ones in his own.

[joeSoap]

Pure class. Ray D'Arcy said he was watchin on telly, and Jim (foot in mouth) Beglin said after 65 mins "George, I can't believe how quiet Henry is"...the rest is history.

I'm probably being a little over critical here, but did anyone else think Shay was a little caught off his line by it??

[VinnyL]

Thats absolutely awful people like that should deffo not be given tickets in the future. Email the FAI at info@fai.ie and mark it for the attention of the ticket office. They have details of where all tickets are sent to. At least they will know which football club got that ticket!

thanks i'll do that, but will they even take it seriously?? if he didnt shut up after we all confrounted him we would have called a steward over

[onenilgameover]

.
As for Kerr Garry Doherty? I'll say no more. The fact he's in the squad is an absolute joke, nevermind being replied on. There are plenty of better strikers than him out there, abroad and in our own league. He is an absolute joke, Kerr useing him constantly is even worse.

Agreed....That really topped it all off. After already resorting to the long ball we then bring on Doherty. An absolute out and out disgrace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One instance when he went up for a header with Boumsong and they both missed and the ball gets mysteriously tangled up in The Doc's legs was awful. You could here the pain in the groan from pit of 35.000 stomachs. Is this really good enough for Ireland. I fuppin don't think so.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[paul_oshea]

sorry yes, sagnol got booked for fouling duff, you are right he was on duff.


what really annoys me is people here saying that we dont play a long ball etc, and kerr getting annoyed that other teams see us as long ball opportunists, the simple fact is WE ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WE ALWAYS resort to the long ball if things arent working out for us...so the one good thing that comes from this is people here will cop on and hopefully too will kerr, that we do play the long ball a lot.

[Cosmo]

no, thought that myself. also thought henry was given too much space for it. Not taking anything away from the goal though, super finish