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WHILE it's too early to be evaluating Steve Staunton's success as Ireland manager, we can at least say that he's done enough to make Jason McAteer a happy man. McAteer, in town to publicise his latest Football Aid charity venture, is ecstatic that Staunton has brought back old stalwarts like Tony Hickey and Mick Byrne to the Ireland set-up. It's beginning to feel like old times again. Throw in a fresh round of Harry's Challenge and a couple of gruff northern English accents and you could nearly swear that Big Jack had never gone away.
No sooner was he settled into his swivel chair than Staunton began to dismantle the fabric built by Brian Kerr and set about replacing it with the structures, so tried and trusted, of a decade ago. The entire edifice was dusted and anything that carried Kerr's fingerprints was marked for instant removal, a policy no doubt that will endear Staunton to his new employers, who couldn't wait for the chance to usher the previous manager to the door.
Perhaps the team's performance on Wednesday will inform us better, but as of now it's difficult to see anything about Staunton's first eight weeks that isn't regressive. Even the hiring of Bobby Robson in a role that has yet to be clearly defined hardly seems the most forward-looking, as venerable and likeable as the former England manager is.
Harking back to old times is rarely a recipe for future success. "We're Ireland and we don't get beat," was Staunton's familiar mantra as an on-pitch leader. If management really is as simple as that, we're surely on the cusp of another golden age.
In truth, it's anything but. That old terrace chant about how impossible it was to beat the Irish was always more problematic than anyone cared to admit. For if it was true that there was a fair chance you wouldn't beat them, it was an equally good bet you wouldn't lose to Ireland either. For all the drumbeating and open-top bus rides of the 1990s, is it really worth getting worked up about a major finals record that says 16 games played and only two won, one of them against the pitiful challenge of Saudi Arabia?
Even without the caveman style of football, do we really hanker for a return to the days when Ireland - to borrow Niall Quinn's memorable phrase - were Ragarse Rovers and thoroughly happy in their skin? Should we not aspire to something a little nobler, a game-plan based on something more than trying to bore and frustrate the opposition into making catastrophic errors in critical places?
The key word in all this is passion and it is a much abused word. The consensus is that under Kerr, the Irish players felt their passion for playing for Ireland was diluted and Staunton has made it a central plank of his reign to bring it back. No one is more enthusiastic than McAteer. "Passion," he said, "is vital at international level and certainly it is in our team. We weren't graced with a lot of world-class players, we had two or three, but the passion we showed on the pitch got us results."
One of the charges made against Kerr was that he overcooked it with video analysis and while that is unquestionably true, McAteer's description of the use of video technology under Mick McCarthy would be hilarious if it wasn't so disturbing. "With Mick we used to watch videos while we were eating and stuff," he said. "You are taking it in but it's not a pleasure to watch it. Otherwise you are half falling asleep sometimes and it can have an adverse effect."
The blatant truth is that passion only got Ireland, as it does any team, so far. Have we forgotten that under McCarthy Ireland took three campaigns to qualify for a major finals and then mainly because of the single-mindedness of Roy Keane, who clearly despised and mistrusted the kind of passion that existed among his team-mates? In any case, is it not strange that a manager should make so much of the job of instilling passion in his team? Should we not assume that as a given and work upwards from there?
For all his faults, Keane espoused a new, more confident vision of how Irish football might proceed and, in Kerr, he saw much to admire. The pity about Kerr is that he couldn't translate what were impressive and forward-looking ideas into a successful day-to-day running of the team, but virtually throwing out the entire blueprint with the manager seems a hopelessly retrograde step.
If McAteer is to be believed, the rehiring of Hickey and the omnipresent Byrne, whose role will be as nothing more than a 'character' and masseur of pampered egos, is only the beginning. Staunton, he says, will bring training back to Clonshaugh, where the facilities were described by Keane a few years ago as "abysmal."
Staunton will also restore the team to their traditional base at Dublin Airport. Why? Were there not enough distractions at Portmarnock? Was there too much cursed peace and sanctuary for the players' liking?
Memories best consigned to the dustbin of Irish football history
Worst of all, McAteer also spoke about the return of the 'I had a Macedonia' t-shirt which was traditionally awarded to the worst player in training and was introduced after Ireland's disastrous 3-2 defeat in Skopje in 1997. The joke was as funny to McCarthy's players as it was offensive to the Macedonians and you can only imagine the smile on their faces when Goran Stavreski's last minute goal in 1999 put paid to Ireland's automatic qualification hopes for Euro 2000.
The problem for Staunton in looking to the past is that he inevitably invokes memories like that which are best consigned to the dustbin of Irish football history. His crude and reductionist handling of the complex issue of non-Irish born players is another black mark. That Staunton chose to tackle it in such a brusque, forthright manner was in keeping with his character, but that doesn't change the fact that there was a more subtle path.
Right now, though, Staunton's reign seems to have as much subtlety as a Mick McCarthy punt into Row Z. Ultimately, of course, we will pander to the clichés and tell ourselves it is a results business and judge him on that basis. It worked for Jack Charlton. But is three steps back the way to take one step forward?
Originally Posted by Jerry The Saint
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