It's all to play for...

[Stuttgart88]

Remember the 3-3 draw away to Poland 1991 (was there). Forget the Phoenix park pitch 12 H sunday morning post hangover mistakes when 3-1 up. The amount of Ireland players getting into the Polish box was a joy to watch. We always looked like scoring goals. This is how we need to play in Slovakia. Forget the Czechs completely. Stan should ban the word "Czechs" when the squad meets up in September until after the Slovak game. Beat the Slovaks. Beat the Slovaks. Beat the Slovaks. 3 points in the bag and the Czech game won't come soon enough.

I also remember a 3-3 away to Denmark in early 80s I think,also 3-1 up. Cracking game of open football.

The difference now though is that no matter who we play, if we go one up then it becomes "protect what we have". What's wrong with trying to go 2 up, and if we concede in doing so, just try and get another anyway? Sweden and Denmark are great examples of this attitude and it tends to get them results.

I remember being furious at the late equaliser in Israel. Not just because of the consequences for our qualification, but for the lost chance to throw away the psychological shackles traveling away has become for us. Maybe a bit of new blood may bring a change in attitude. I can't see McShane or Hunt being afraid to give it a go. But I really do fear that Stan, having been a stalwart of the "draw away" two decades, knows no other approach.

We need Robbie to break the away opposition offside line better than he has done in the past too.

[Stuttgart88]

Bonner, Irwin, O'Leary, Moran, Stan, Morris!, McGrath, Townsend, Keane, Cas, Sheedy. That was some team. 4-5-1 but played like 2-7-1. I would have put the mortgage on us winning in 92 if Lineker hadn't scored late on in Poland.

Remember the Poles were 1 up and Chris Woods rugby tackled a Polish forward and the blatantly obvious penalty wasn't given? Funny how the English never seem to recall just how often they benefit from crap refs or cheating (Sheringham's dive for the Beckham free kick - his eighth of the day -against Greece at OT is another example) yet they hound down refs or players who offend them.

We lost that group though by not putting England away at Wembley and when Poland held out for a 0-0 in Dublin, when their goalkeeper gave an even worse performance of feigning injury that Dudu Awat. 7 minutes he was down for absolutely nothing.

[Stuttgart88]

dullish games and we got the results.

Exactly how teams qualify. Look at France's current campaign. If these hacks ever looked across Europe they'd notice that very few teams ever set qualification alight. Some may amass impressive points hauls but usually by grinding out victories they just about deserve.

[tetsujin1979]

We lost that group though by not putting England away at Wembley and when Poland held out for a 0-0 in Dublin, when their goalkeeper gave an even worse performance of feigning injury that Dudu Awat. 7 minutes he was down for absolutely nothing.

Wasn't Niall Quinn held back and eventually hacked down by their centre half at one point as well?

[mypost]

The difference now though is that no matter who we play, if we go one up then it becomes "protect what we have". What's wrong with trying to go 2 up?

When we went ahead against Israel at home, we went for the second goal, and got it. Then.......

[Noelys Guitar]

Wasn't Niall Quinn held back and eventually hacked down by their centre half at one point as well?

Remember that. Defo peno. And against England at Wembley Ray Houghton shooting wide when easier to score from Cascarino's nod down. But that great side 90/91 didn't qualify. Amazing. And yet this one might. Funny old game anyone.

[tetsujin1979]

When we went ahead against Israel at home, we went for the second goal, and got it. Then.......

Then we had a dodgy offside decision go against us, and our best player up until that point had to go off with a shoulder injury

[Sligo Hornet]

Then we had a dodgy offside decision go against us, and our best player up until that point had to go off with a shoulder injury

Plus the dodgy penalty, and that feckin cheating eejit of a keeper!!

[geysir]

Do we ever get way with anything or is it just one pile of chips stacked high of injustices against us?
Nobody seems to remember our desperate and very deep defending for the entire 2nd half of the '81 game against Belgium, just the poor (or whatever the case may be) Portugese Ref and that dive.

[Noelys Guitar]

Do we ever get way with anything or is it just one pile of chips stacked high of injustices against us?
Nobody seems to remember our desperate and very deep defending for the entire 2nd half of the '81 game against Belgium, just the poor (or whatever the case may be) Portugese Ref and that dive.

In the home game against Belgium Tony Grealish was a mile offside when he scored. So we did get some breaks. Another great Irish team that could have gone far in 82. We needed a 0-0 draw between France and Holland in the final game to get into a play off with Holland I believe. 2-0 to France of course. Can't remember all the details of why their would have been a play off. Anyone on here remember all of the details?

[youngirish]

The side we have now is just as good as anything we had in 90/91 IMO. Get the rose tinted glasses off and look at some of the players that played regularly in the qualifiers that time round. John Byrne, Cascerino, Morris, McCarthy - four donkeys IMO though McCarthy at the time could do a decent job as attackers got no protection from the referee.

Given, Finnan, Duff, Robbie Keane and Doyle are better than the players in their corresponding positions in that team. Was McCarthy any better than Dunne? Probably not. Admittedly both Moran and O'Leary are better than any central defenders we have now and Keane, Townsend and McGrath are better than all our midfielders (though Keane wasn't as good back then as he was in later years). However we had a very limited supply of decent strikers (only Quinn was any good at International level though Aldridge got better in time) and we suffered from a severe lack of any pace (particularly in wide areas). Our full strength team now is not the problem. Injuries in certain positions and the ineptitude of Stan are.

[gspain]

In the home game against Belgium Tony Grealish was a mile offside when he scored. So we did get some breaks. Another great Irish team that could have gone far in 82. We needed a 0-0 draw between France and Holland in the final game to get into a play off with Holland I believe. 2-0 to France of course. Can't remember all the details of why their would have been a play off. Anyone on here remember all of the details?

A draw between France and Holland would have put us through unless it was something like 6-6 which would have meant a playoff. A win for the Dutch would have put them through. France got the win they needed and subsequently beat Cyprus too.

We were robbed in Belgium - Stapleton had a perfectly good goal disallowed as well as the dive and the push on Seamus McDonagh for the goal. given that Anderlect were subsequently proved to be bribing referees at the time in European games calling Raul Nazare inept is way off the mark.

I don't recall Grealish's goal being offside v Belgium although I think Lawrenson's winner v Holland probably was. We were also done in Paris when a perfectly good goal was chalked off at 1-0 down although we deserved to lose the game. We had far more than our fair share of misfortune in the 70's and 80's with dubious refereeing decisions.

[geysir]

Anderlecht are not the Belgian FA, a club like Anderlecht being found guilty proves diddly. Some standards of rationality are needed to rise above the levels of victim conspiracy levels
Against Spain in WC 2002, as Camacho said, we had a flower growing up our arse in that game, as in we got all the decisions. Every razor thin offside decision, 2 fekin penalties. Frisk did all within his legal powers to keep us in that game.

[cavan_fan]

The thing that stands out about '82 is how it explodes the Big Jack myth. Listening to some commentators you'd think he'd taken us from a position close to that of Andorra now to qualifying. In fact it was just a logical progression. It's true that new blood was needed when he came in but any number of people could have got us to qualify.

Jack was especially lucky in 88 with the qualification group. You'd have thought that to be one of the 7 qualifiers you'd have had to get past tougher opponenents than Bulgaria, Scotland and Belgium (I presume Belgium were top seeds). Also, we only won half of our matches and I cant help feeling we still in our bones think this is how you qualify, lots of draws esp away from home.

[mypost]

We were robbed in Belgium - Stapleton had a perfectly good goal disallowed as well as the dive and the push on Seamus McDonagh for the goal.

Everyone goes on about the Belgium game in that campaign, but it was in March of that year. We had lots of time to qualify after that setback, we could have won in Holland in September, and the France game at home was in October. We were knocked out on gd, not on points. If we had beaten France 3-1, the Belgium defeat would have been an irrelevance.

We got our own back on Belgium, when Liam Brady scored from the spot in the last minute to nick a draw there in '86. Funny how nobody goes on about that though. If we hadn't equalised, Bulgaria would have qualified from the group.

[geysir]

We were knocked out on gd, not on points. If we had beaten France 3-1, the Belgium defeat would have been an irrelevance.

Wouldn't have mattered even if we beat France 3-0. The importance of that French 2nd goal was a myth.
France had 2 games after Landsdowne rd, beat Holland 2-0 and won the last game at home to Cyprus, the goal diff in France's favour was a handfull.

[Torn-Ado]

Anderlecht are not the Belgian FA, a club like Anderlecht being found guilty proves diddly. Some standards of rationality are needed to rise above the levels of victim conspiracy levels
Against Spain in WC 2002, as Camacho said, we had a flower growing up our arse in that game, as in we got all the decisions. Every razor thin offside decision, 2 fekin penalties. Frisk did all within his legal powers to keep us in that game.

Both penalties were justified and the offsides were offside. Marginally or not, its against the rules.

We were lucky to have a brave, competant ref. Not a biased one.

[gspain]

Anderlecht are not the Belgian FA, a club like Anderlecht being found guilty proves diddly. Some standards of rationality are needed to rise above the levels of victim conspiracy levels
Against Spain in WC 2002, as Camacho said, we had a flower growing up our arse in that game, as in we got all the decisions. Every razor thin offside decision, 2 fekin penalties. Frisk did all within his legal powers to keep us in that game.

The biggest club in Belgium at the time were found guilty of bribing referees to win European ties. Is it not possible or even likely that the same thing could have happened for the national team. The decisions made were IMO too much in favour of one team to be just inept. There was no obvious reason to disallow Frank Stapleton's goal. Even when shown the video by the Sunday Tribune years later he could not justify the decision and tried to make different claims. This was the crucial game. The draw in Rotterdam was a fantastic eprformance and result.

France had another bit of luck in that campaign. They hit Cyprus for seven on grass in Limassol while the Dutch, Belgians and ourselves all had odd goal victories on sand in Nicosia.

Comparisons with Spain 02 are ridiculous. The first penalty v Spain was debatable but it looked nailed on at the time on first glance. The 2nd penalty was as blatant as they come. He almost had Quinner's shirt off. The linessman got the offsides right AFAIK.

[gspain]

The thing that stands out about '82 is how it explodes the Big Jack myth. Listening to some commentators you'd think he'd taken us from a position close to that of Andorra now to qualifying. In fact it was just a logical progression. It's true that new blood was needed when he came in but any number of people could have got us to qualify.

Jack was especially lucky in 88 with the qualification group. You'd have thought that to be one of the 7 qualifiers you'd have had to get past tougher opponenents than Bulgaria, Scotland and Belgium (I presume Belgium were top seeds). Also, we only won half of our matches and I cant help feeling we still in our bones think this is how you qualify, lots of draws esp away from home.

We did go downhill after 82. Jimmy Magee remarked in 1985 that ireland would never qualify for a major tournament in his lifetime. Frankly I'd have felt the same then.

Belgium were semi finalists in the previous (86) world cup. Scotland and Bulgaria both qualified for that tournament. Jack got lucky with the Gary Mackay goal but we lsot in Bulgaria to a penalty awarded for a foul outside the box. We also had a goal disallowed at 1-1 that should have stood.

Jack did not play attractive football but it is a myth to say we played defensive football. We were actually very positive away from home albeit with long ball tactics.

[geysir]

The biggest club in Belgium at the time were found guilty of bribing referees to win European ties. Is it not possible or even likely that the same thing could have happened for the national team. The decisions made were IMO too much in favour of one team to be just inept. There was no obvious reason to disallow Frank Stapleton's goal. Even when shown the video by the Sunday Tribune years later he could not justify the decision and tried to make different claims. This was the crucial game. The draw in Rotterdam was a fantastic eprformance and result.

France had another bit of luck in that campaign. They hit Cyprus for seven on grass in Limassol while the Dutch, Belgians and ourselves all had odd goal victories on sand in Nicosia.

Comparisons with Spain 02 are ridiculous. The first penalty v Spain was debatable but it looked nailed on at the time on first glance. The 2nd penalty was as blatant as they come. He almost had Quinner's shirt off. The linessman got the offsides right AFAIK.

I was never comparing with Spain 2002, so it's not ridiculous.
It's just an example of where we got all the decisions, no matter how each decision is dissected, the odds on us getting all those decisions in one game prob. 1000/1.

Is it not possible or even likely that the same thing could have happened for the national team.

Evidence enough for a mob, maybee, at a long stretch.