Ireland Keane to fight on
04/06/02 | by Ade O'Connor

The Irish team arrived into the match on a wave of Roy Keane scandal; certainly he did the team no favours with their preparation. But as you have no doubt seen, on the day, Ireland were up to the steepened task, and in many ways, came out of the game unlucky not to win.

All the hype was on how Ireland would dearly miss their 'best player' and their 'captain', but in the end, it didn't come down to that. There was real fight in the second half, despite all the question marks surrounding the ability of players to last 90 minutes in that humidity.

For starters, Mick McCarthy threw in a surprise of his own, starting Gary Kelly at right back, ahead of the talented young Steve Finnan, who had recently made the position his own. Gary Breen was to play alongside Steve Staunton in the centre backs, otherwise the team was as expected.

Personally, I think I would have taken a draw at the start of the match, most pundits had written this off to be a loss for the Green Machine, Cameroon won the African Nations Cup, and so they were no mugs.

The game went that way really, the pundits got it right initially, Cameroon's pressure was near relentless in stages, but somehow we survived it. Eto'o and Mboma looked very lively up front, and to be absolutely fair, they had the beating of Stan and Breen. There was no question, that at some point in the game, Ireland were going to be caught by the African's forwards pace.

To be completely honest, Staunton can be a bit of a liability against teams like Cameroon, throughout his career Stan has lacked speed and can be a bit slow and sluggish. His real strength is ball distribution from the back; it is rare that Stan provides a bad pass and can be trusted to restart the attack. Still, the Irish at the moment have no better centre back, maybe in future years young John O`Shea can step into the breech.

It looked bleak after 39 minutes, when Cameroon broke the deadlock by really catching Ireland quite cold at the back. It was a scrappy goal, and from Irelands point of view, a poor one to concede. But there can be no debating that up until this point, the Africans were the better side, and Mboma's strike put them in front on merit.

Before the interval, you just seemed to feel that Ireland lacked that spark that could make them get a break forward, for the two strikers to get onto, it just was not happening for them. The service to the front men was poor, in fact at times non-existent, when the Irish did seem to have possession of the balled, they were all too often pegged back in defence.

After the break, it was a very different story. Whether it was McCarthy's team talk or what, I don't know, the new side had spark, but more importantly, a desire to go out and get something from this game. The Irish now looked more like scoring a goal, the likes of Robbie Keane and Damian Duff were moving into new positions and creating space for the advancing midfielders.

It may not be a coincidence that the entrance of Steve Finnan at half time, was the beginning of the new Irish purpose. He looked lively at right back, wishing to get forward at every opportunity and put crosses into the box. Eyebrows were raised when he was left out of the initial line up, as he had been voted by his fellow professionals as having the best season at right back in the Premiership.

Ireland's new interest in the match was almost rewarded when the seemingly suicidal Rigobert Song almost put the ball over the line with his hand, at his own end of the pitch. Thankfully for Rigobert, once again the keeper was at hand to make the save right on the line, as in the first half, when Song almost got an own goal from a Harte free-kick. There were appeals for handball, but they fell on deaf ears.

The ground shook in my house, as Matt Holland picked up the loose ball from the clearance of the head of the defender, he struck it sweetly, a low drive into the right hand corner of the keepers goal, 1-1! This came just a minute after Geremi had gone close to putting the game to bed for Cameroon, only to miss by a foot or so. Ireland could really count themselves fortunate that they were still in the game, never mind on level terms.

For the rest of the game, it seemed to be Ireland pushing forward in numbers, and it must have been at least 10 minutes from the goal that Cameroon even got near the Irish half. It showed that when Eire got their confidence up, it was difficult to break them down or breach the defence. The Germans and the Saudis will need to be aware of this if they aren't to fall by the wayside.

In the 84th minute, as the game was coming to its climax, Damian Duff broke forward, only to lay the ball off to Robbie Keane on the edge of the area, who's magnificent effort hit the post. His Leeds United boss, David O`Leary claimed that he would score those on a regular basis in training.

Like the Irish team itself, I feel that Robbie is very much a confidence player. When he is on top of his game and playing to the best of his ability, he has a certain air of esteem around him, whereas when things are not going to plan, he can seem to get bogged down. Luckily for the Irish, he appears to have brought his game to this World Cup, and hopefully he can put on a real show for the fans.

The rest of the game panned out with the green team pushing, trying to find that elusive 2nd goal, with Cameroon getting the odd attempt in on the counter attack. As the final whistle blew, you certainly felt it was Ireland who were more happy with the performance and indeed the result, treating it almost as a win.

Before the game, many pundits had outlines how difficult a task this would be for Ireland, Cameroon are a very different style to any team faced in the qualifying stages, and they have definite talents. A draw is a fine result for Ireland in terms of prospects for getting to the next phase of the tournament.

However, with Germany dispatching Saudi Arabia 8-0, in farcical fashion, it is important that Germany are beaten as it will be unlikely that their goal difference is bettered. That result does beg the question though, why should teams as weak as Saudi Arabia be allowed to 'compete' on such a high stage when the likes of Holland have not been able to make the competition.

Of course, the World Cup is a celebration of World Football, and many would argue that the tournament just wouldn't be the same without a fair amount of representatives from Asia in particular. But does it not weaken the standard of competition and the name of the competition when a cricket score occurs like it did at the Germany vs. Saudi Arabia game?

I think the answer may well be somewhere in between of reducing the amount of Asian qualifying places and increasing it. I believe the amount of poor teams qualifying for the World Cup, while not reducing the diversity could be improved by using more inter-federational playoffs. This way, it gives the Asians and other federations a fair chance of making the grade, while not diluting the standard.

But whichever way you look at it, for this tournament at least, Cameroon and Ireland will have to beat the team in front of them, no matter the quality. It is very much doubtful whether any team can rack up as many goals as the Germans did, but the battle may well come down to who scores the most goals against them, gaining the 'extra point' of goal difference.

I suppose now everyone is wondering about my thoughts on the Roy Keane saga - do we accept him back with open arms, do we boo him off the pitch every time we see him play? I think the answer is somewhere in between, as it always is in football. The fact is the public don't know the full story, all we are hearing is what the parties are prepared to release in the heat of the moment.

Looking in from the outside, it seems six of one and half a dozen of the other. The FAI have a reputation for fobbing off players with tacky facilities, and Roy Keane does often carry the weight to speak out about issues. Only the other year did Roy Keane get the whole squad promoted to Business Class after he found that everyone bar the players flew there. Often Roy had good points, some of the hotels were just poor and the reference to the Nags Head on tour was not completely false.

On the other hand, what gives Roy Keane the right to jeopardise the World Cup for the whole nation? The way he spoke to McCarthy was totally out of line; you can't go against your manager like that no matter how bad it gets. Roy Keane seems to have missed the point calling a man with Irish parentage who is proud of his background, an 'English C**t'. Maybe Roy may wish to turn the bullet the other way and look at his family, and his English children.

Where does the blame lie? - in my opinion I think you can really lay it mostly at the door of Roy Keane. All Roy had to do was keep schtum about the whole situation until he got home, rather then risk ruining the World Cup for so many people. Fine, he was called into a meeting publicly, but all the players and staff had issues with Roy Keane, not just Mick McCarthy. Roy failed to understand that the pitch in Saipan was nothing more then a holiday, like the England teams trip to Dubai.

But whichever way you choose to look at it now, there is no comeback for Roy. He has turned his back, not only on a football team, but a nation - and people don't forget this sort of betrayal. The Irish team appear to have successfully focused on the most important aspect of their trip to Japan, the football itself. Drawing with Cameroon was a good result, hopefully the good work can continue against Germany.