Barnsley bark has rekindled Irish spirits...
‘NONE OF
YOU F ***** S WANTED ME IN THE TEAM BACK THEN’
AT 60 years of age and approaching 1,000 games in football management, Mick McCarthy likes to let on that he’s mellowed with age. Don’t believe that for a second. When his dander is up, McCarthy breathes fire and brimstone with as much force as he displayed over an eight-year international career with Ireland, and on his first stint as manager from 1996 to 2002.
At times, his language can become a tad unparliamentary as it was this week in Dublin when he released a bloated 39-man squad for the New Zealand friendly and Euro 2020 corker with Denmark.
The Barnsley bark echoed around the SSE Airtricity League offices as everyone knew McCarthy was about, especially the written press in their slot.
At one point, McCarthy revisited 1986 and bizarrely claimed that before Jack Charlton’s first game as manager the Irish press corps were against him.
‘None of you f ***** s wanted me in the team,’ he said.
I was working at that game and can recall one national newspaper journalist, only one, who had it in for McCarthy.
Scroll forward 33 years and McCarthy perceives a negative vibe from the media towards him and his players.
If there is any negativity, it’s bubbling around in small doses as most written words about McCarthy’s return as manager, have been fair, balanced and generally positive.
Overall, the team have done well to put themselves into a position in Group D where they are one big performance, at home, from qualifying directly to the finals.
And McCarthy is right to say that everyone would have taken that at the outset.
McCarthy has rekindled the spirit and togetherness which had seeped under the floorboards in the final year of the Martin O’Neill-Roy Keane axis. While a happy camp doesn’t always mean better results, it certainly helps the mood.
He has squeezed an Indian Summer out of Glenn Whelan, and thrust others forward from the shadows, such as David McGoldrick and Enda Stevens, with considerable success.
McGoldrick should win Player of the Year. Young gun Aaron Connolly
has hinted at rich promise in the last two qualifiers, while Troy Parrott, only 17, will be involved against New Zealand in Dublin on Thursday week.
Should the Spurs striker ignite, he may find himself on the bench against the Danes, for McCarthy has never been fearful of encouraging youth.
What’s a nagging worry, is the way the campaign appears to have lost momentum in the stiffer second half.
If the first four games were mostly on the flat, the final four were uphill and McCarthy, a keen biker, has seen his players huff and puff as they push the pedals.
Since the resumption in September, Ireland have managed one goal and two draws in three games.
They were well spanked 2-0 by the Swiss in Geneva, although in the second half they gave as good as they got, even when reduced to 10 men after Seamus Coleman’s dismissal.
The challenge for McCarthy is to extract a sustained 90-minute heave when the Danes are in town.
It might work in his favour that his team are the underdogs against classier opponents, for he has been down this road before, 18 years ago when the Dutch three-deckers were docked by the Dodder. ‘I’ll take a similar performance and a similar result, but I hope somebody doesn’t get sent off. That’s one of my most enjoyable, and famous, results as a manager.
‘We’d 10 men for most of the second half, they were peppering our box and had some chances, they had a few near-misses that’s for sure.
‘When you are playing the top teams that’s the way you expect it to be and Denmark are the second seeds in our group.’
McCarthy played in a team of strong characters from 1984 to 1992, and managed a similar crew from 1996 to 2002, even if he had his run-ins with one R. Keane.
Of the 2019 crop, he likes what he sees.
‘They are a good bunch. You wouldn’t get that draw in Denmark if they weren’t, you wouldn’t get that draw against Switzerland if they weren’t, and you wouldn’t have got that last 20 minutes or whatever it was when Seamus has gone off in Geneva, when we really tried to get a goal with 10 men. And then you’ve big Shane Duffy apologising for that late goal when we were losing anyway. They are great lads, good characters.
‘If we play like that (second half in Geneva) then we can win. If we play like that and get beat, then I just have to take it. I don’t want to play badly and lose, that’s for sure.
‘I don’t think there’s been too many bad performances. I was asked about James McClean. If someone is picking him out in the game against Switzerland I think that’s unfair because I don’t think anyone played well in the first half and I’m certainly not one for digging out individual players.’
When he was reminded how Ireland owe the Danes for a 5-1 World Cup play-off hammering from two years ago, he chuckled. ‘Hey, I always owed someone one. Even if I’d never f***ing played them before, I owed them one,’ he said.
Peppery, provocative and passionate, all qualities McCarthy’s Ireland will require in abundance tomorrow fortnight.