Ireland are not Holland, and Kerr must realise this
Niall Quinn
Friday October 7, 2005
The Guardian
A more aggressive media, a less aggressive football team. I do not want to simplify a situation that is complex, but in a nutshell this is my assessment of the Republic of Ireland under Brian Kerr. The next six days may decide Kerr's fate, with Ireland going to Cyprus tomorrow and then hosting Switzerland in Dublin next Wednesday. Two victories could be enough to see us at the World Cup or in the play-offs. Anything less and Kerr could find his job in jeopardy.
The manager is discovering the thin lines that separate success and perceived failure. Had the Irish beaten France at Lansdowne Road last month, for instance, Kerr would almost certainly have been awarded and signed a new contract. But try as they did, and they could not have tried harder, Ireland lost to a piece of magic from Thierry Henry.
The response is something I have never witnessed before in Ireland. We are a decade or so into the country's Celtic Tiger phenomenon and maybe that has made us a more demanding nation - it's just a theory. But for whatever reason we now have a media akin to London's.
The intensity that accompanies every cough and spit from Sven-Goran Eriksson or Wayne Rooney is now being seen across the Irish Sea. Where once the sporting press travelled every inch of a qualifying campaign with the team, they have now climbed off well before the last kick to pen their disapproval of Kerr's Ireland. To me that is quite a change in the culture.
In Britain it might not be understood just how Kerr came to succeed Mick McCarthy. Having had exceptional results at youth levels, Kerr was a popular and accessible presence among Irish sports journalists and when the vacancy arose he rode a wave of media support like no other. He was clapped into office. Once there, however, he immediately shut a previously open door and that is a decision now revisiting him.
While things were going well - impressive results in friendlies and Roy Keane reintroduced to the squad - Kerr's increasing distance from the media mattered only to the people involved. Meanwhile, he was setting about imposing his ideas on how the game should be played by the national team and a decent start to a hardish group featuring Israel as well as France and the Swiss left him in a comfortable position, if not a cosy one.
Those ideas of Kerr represent a second cultural shift. I would describe him as a technocrat when it comes to coaching. When I started out playing for Ireland the manager was Jack Charlton and the criticism was that we played caveman football. There was an element of truth to that and I would not apologise for it because I always felt that the sheer urgency of our play somehow contained a degree of our Irishness. We are the country of gaelic football, of hurling; we are not Holland.
The following is an example of where these two shifts have merged, I think. When we played England off the park at Wembley in 1991, every Irish player attended a PFA dinner until 2am, less than 72 hours before kick-off. We were in full view of everyone and we are still lauded by the media for our display at Wembley. Last month, five days before France, a few of the Ireland team went out for a meal and after it a few of the few had a night out. There was a frenzy of media criticism designed to embarrass the manager. I could not believe it.
That was the background in which the players went onto Lansdowne Road. They fought hard, but one thing lost in the scrutiny of Irish defeat was just how hard the French fought. They equalled us, which meant to win we had to be superior technically. We may be all Europeans now, but we have no Henry.
That is not Kerr's fault, but the Irish sides who reached Euro 88, Italia 90 and the rest had no Henry. What we had was spirited, sometimes raw Irish talent and all the video analysis in the world won't give you that. I have been in this sort of siege position before and I know what the players are going through. I want them to win - which not everyone in Ireland can say - but I want them to win playing Irish football, not cautious continental football.
Bookmarks