Weekends like this tend to bring a bone-cold simplicity to the job of any Ireland manager. A middling game, not too big and not too small, is ultimately the kind of thing upon which you get judged. Tweaking the noses of the leviathans every now and then is fun but it’s not expected. The odd disaster against a minnow ought to be avoided but sure look — life is a gas sometimes and everyone has days when they shouldn’t have got out of bed. Suck it up and move on.
A game against Scotland though, that’s a reckoner. Doesn’t need to be them specifically, just the likes of them. Because, all things being equal, the likes of them are the likes of us. Middle-rank countries, qualifiers for occasional tournaments, can’t really be trusted to be any good, equally can’t be trusted to roll over when you need them to. For Ireland, a trip to Glasgow is the football gods pointing at the pot — you either get off it or you do the other thing.
This is especially true after you’ve beaten them 3-0 at home in your last match. Watching Steve Clarke’s side stroke the ball around against Ukraine the other night was enjoyable, not least because the memory of trouncing them in the Aviva in the summer was still fresh in the mind. If that’s what they’re capable of — and if Stephen Kenny’s side could so comprehensively gut them a mere few months ago — then the ceiling of what Ireland might do just got raised a couple of notches.
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Hmmmm, says you. Not sure there’s a through line there. Equally likely is the scenario whereby the Scots were gassed in June, addled off the back of failing to qualify for the World Cup, hankering for Ibiza. The way they threw their hat at it after the first goal went Ireland’s way certainly suggested as much. We won’t be long finding out, one way or the other.
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It was bracing though to go through the Scotland side on Wednesday and compare notes. Of their 10 outfield starters against Ukraine, seven are fixtures in Premier League teams. Of the others, Callum McGregor is the Celtic captain and a reliable Champions League performer, Stuart Armstrong is in and out of the Southampton team. Only Jack Hendry, the centre back toiling away for minutes at the lower reaches of Serie A with Cremonese, is in a shaky club situation. And that’s without Andy Robertson, who wasn’t available.
Ireland? Well, let’s just say Kenny won’t have bumped into Clarke too often on the circuit recently. Gavin Bazunu and Nathan Collins are the only regular Premier League starters. Matt Doherty has had minimal minutes with Spurs, Séamus Coleman has been kept out of the Everton team by his Scottish counterpart Nathan Patterson. Plenty of the others are having decent seasons down the divisions but by and large, the Scots are literally leagues ahead.
Brian Kerr’s first game was a 2-0 win over Scotland in Hampden Park in February 2003. Kenny would take that tonight and sprint to the airport
Doherty has at least turned up in the Champions League this season, albeit only for the last six minutes against Marseille a fortnight ago. In doing so, he became the first Irish outfield player at the top level in Europe since 2016, when Cork defender Eoghan O’Connell came off the bench for Celtic. Six years without so much as a substitute appearance is chronic stuff, notwithstanding Caoimhín Kelleher’s two games for Liverpool in 2020.
In an attempt to scratch an itch the other day, this columnist went looking for the last Irish outfield player to start a Champions League game. And went looking. And went looking. A shiny penny to anyone who came up with Cillian Sheridan, the Cavan striker who took the field for Apoel Nicosia against Ajax in December 2014. Anthony Stokes got a game for Celtic in 2013 and Aiden McGeady played for Spartak Moscow in 2012.
But you have to go all the way back to May 2011 to find the last time an Irish player started a Champions League game for an English club. In fact, there were two that night — John O’Shea and Darron Gibson started against Schalke in the second leg of that year’s semi-final. O’Shea captained, Gibson scored a goal and laid one on for Antonio Valencia. In a Champions League semi-final. Imagine.
We are where we are, though. The fact that Kenny has nothing in that realm to call on won’t shield him if Scotland give his side the runaround tonight. And nor should it. This is his 27th game in charge — any Ireland side in the 27th game of a manager’s reign should be in or around Scotland’s level. If that’s not a particularly scientific view of things, it’s the reality of the gig.
After the rocky early period, Kenny’s Ireland seem to have settled into a groove of sorts. He won’t ever have to worry about a goalkeeper, whether it’s Bazunu or Kelleher. He has dependable performers throughout the team. His promotion of youth has paid dividends – the fact that Jim Crawford’s under-21s can be in a play-off for the Euros without seven players who Kenny has brought into the senior set-up is clearly encouraging.
But, as the early summer games showed, Ireland still have it in them to throw in the odd stinker. Losing to Armenia was the sort of careless mistake that puts Kenny in the crosshairs. His winning record is a measly 23 per cent, easily the lowest of any of the post-Charlton regimes after 26 games. Brian Kerr, for example, won 15 of his first 26 games. Kenny has won six.
Different times, different players, different places in the world. But the job remains more or less the same. For all that Ireland have a bunch of promising young players, they’re bitcoin in a world where results are the only currency.
Kerr’s first game was a 2-0 win over Scotland in Hampden Park in February 2003. Kenny would take that tonight and sprint to the airport.
