Armenia: The Sequel. And, ever so occasionally, sequels are better than the originals. The greatest of them all, according to Rotten Tomatoes, was Paddington 2 – they gave it a score of 99 per cent, while it hit a lofty 89 on its Popcornmeter.
Information of that quality would, no doubt, have lifted Heimir Hallgrímsson’s spirits ahead of Tuesday evening’s game, and he might even have mentioned it in his prematch talk, although you’d imagine he had a comforting marmalade sandwich tucked under his bench in case it all went pear-shaped against Armenia again.
“A few star performances out here tonight and it could give us that plot twist that leads to a better ending,” said a hopeful Joanne Cantwell when she welcomed us to the Aviva Stadium, the team having been pelted with, well, verbal rotten tomatoes after that defeat in Yerevan.
The Popcornmeter reading fell dramatically, though, when we were shown that table again, one point all our lads could muster from their first three games. “All is not lost,” said Joanne, trying to hearten us, before adding, “yet, anyway. A repeat of Yerevan would end World Cup dreams, probably cost some jobs and maybe even international futures.”
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That was quite a bleak outlook, but Kevin Doyle did his best to counter it. “We can’t be as bad as we were in Armenia, I don’t think that’s possible.” Richie Sadlier’s face said: “Are you sure?”
Tony O’Donoghue, meanwhile, brought us the team news, Will Smallbone coming in for the suspended Josh Cullen to partner Jayson Molumby in midfield. “They wouldn’t be selected if everyone was fit,” said Richie in his lusty tribute to the pair.
The highlight of the build-up was furnished by Kev, who produced levels of delusion that had you rewinding to make sure your ears hadn’t deceived you. Casting his eye over the Armenia line-up, he concluded that “when you go through the two teams, on paper you’d pick every one of our players before you’d pick theirs”.
He had, then, the sound of a man who’d missed Armenia playing our bunch off the park last month, the only travesty about the result that they hadn’t won by triple the margin. If he’s not careful, he’ll be dubbed Ireland’s Lee Dixon soon enough.
Anyhow, Kev called for a touch more aggression from our lot – “I don’t condone an elbow to the face, but ...” – and opted to look on the bright side of life. “We could win tonight, we could end up second in the group, and the world is right again.” “It’s the hope that kills you,” said Joanne.
It is too, and it was sucked out of us during that first half. The worse it got, the further Darragh Maloney’s voice veered towards bass levels, while Stephen Kelly’s went in the falsetto direction. “The atmosphere – or lack of it – is unsettling,” said Darragh, the stadium having the sound of a morgue, with a little bit of audible disgruntlement thrown in.
“They look like wounded animals,” said Kev at the break, by now perhaps thinking one or two Armenians would get on a combined team sheet. “This is scraping the bottom of the barrel,” he complained when asked to review Ireland’s best moments in that first half, their scanty attempts on goal largely ending up in Rosslare. Richie, meanwhile, was nigh-on lost for words.
Second half. Now, to be honest about it, when the opposition goes down to 10 men, as Armenia did when Tigran Barseghyan tossed his skull in Finn Azaz’s direction, your first reaction is “yay!”, but your second is, “Jesus, it’ll be feckin’ mortifying if we draw with this lot when they’re down a man.” We’d be in ended-World-Cup-dreams, lost-jobs and international-futures-done-and-dusted territory.
But? It might be time to build a statue in honour of Smallbone’s right foot and Evan Ferguson’s forehead. Goal. As Hallgrímsson said prematch, “I would take us playing a sh**ty game and winning 1-0.” And so it proved. The Popcornmeter reading might not quite be at 110 per cent, but this sequel at least had a plot twist that led to a better ending. The world is right again.
