Mccarthy’s return falls flat as Delaney deals sum up Irish malaise
For all the controversy surrounding the Football Association of Ireland’s most powerful figure, John Delaney, the health of a governing body is ultimately judged on the success of its national team, and in that respect, both the FAI and the Republic of Ireland are in trouble.
The revelation that Delaney not only earns significantly more in a year than the club who win the League of Ireland gain in prize money, but also has his rent paid for by the FAI understandably caused a stink. Nevertheless, Ireland’s dire performance against Gibraltar was a depressing reminder of this team’s limitations, a second-half goal by Burnley midfielder Jeff Hendrick sparing Irish blushes.
Gibraltar sit 160 places below Ireland in Fifa’s rankings. They have just two professional players and never before has West Didsbury and Chorlton FC, of English football’s ninth tier, been represented on the international stage.
Mick Mccarthy’s team was made up of Premier League and Championship players, yet the gap between them looked minuscule. Play like this again at home to Georgia tomorrow and Ireland could well lose in front of their own supporters.
Confidence is clearly a problem, even though every Irish player – including Matt Doherty who was hauled off after an hour – had talked about how happy and positive everything had been since Mccarthy replaced Martin O’neill and Roy Keane.
Doherty had been one of O’neill’s bravest critics, suggesting that the players did not know what their roles were under him, yet he was among Ireland’s worst players on Saturday, with the experiment of pushing him forward to right wing – as Mccarthy later admitted – clearly not working.
“We knew it was going to be hard,” said Brighton defender Shane Duffy. “We tried to build it up like an FA Cup game where it’s underdogs against a bigger side and we were the bigger side.
“On paper, you think you should go out and blitz them, and if we had got an early goal, then it might have been a bit different, but we didn’t, and the longer the game went on at 0-0 or 1-0, then they always had hope.
“There is a lot to improve on for us and we have to get back to working hard ahead of a big game on Tuesday. I think we can play a lot better than that.”
They are going to have to. Ireland have changed manager but so much stays the same, including Delaney’s grip on the FAI.
Gibraltar Ireland Referee