Panel not so wise in hindsight
Sunday April 05 2009
It is an article of faith in this country that RTE's soccer coverage is a thing of wonder, a treat for the intelligent sports fan which knocks the lightweight offerings of cross-channel pundits into a cocked hat.
And yet, looking at the old firm of O'Herlihy, Dunphy and Giles going through their paces on Wednesday night after Ireland's battling draw against Italy with a little help from relative newcomer Ronnie Whelan, you'd wonder if our sages are quite so wise after all.
I'm a great admirer of Eamon Dunphy. Writing three superb books -- Only A Game, The Unforgettable Fire and Strange Kind Of Glory -- is a fine achievement for anyone and almost unprecedented for a professional sportsman. I'll always read what Dunphy has to write. Yet the man's television routine has become a terrible embarrassment.
Making sweeping statements and snap judgements with all the heedless certainty of a man on a high stool who's just about to be told he's had enough for one evening, Dunphy on television is a bad vaudeville act. His assertion that Trapattoni made a grave mistake in replacing Andy Keogh with Caleb Folan flew in the face of all the evidence but was unfortunately all too typical.
Yet it was Giles who really stuck in the craw last Wednesday as he criticised Trapattoni as though operating from a position of great superiority. John Giles is the next thing to a secular saint in Irish sport but, while he might be the finest footballer we've ever produced, it's worth remembering that he was a failure as a manager.
In the qualification campaign for the 1978 World Cup, his Ireland team scored two goals in four games and finished bottom of the group. In the following European Championships campaign, six hours of football against England and Northern Ireland produced one goal and two points out of a possible eight.
He came back to Shamrock Rovers in 1977 and declared that his aim was to win the European Cup in the next few years (He did, I've got the Magill magazine interview to prove it). In fact, the Hoops couldn't even make the European Cup under Giles who was repeatedly outsmarted in the race for the League of Ireland title by such canny domestic managers as Billy Young of Bohemians and Jim McLaughlin of Dundalk.
The ironic thing is that, for all Giles's pleas for Trapattoni to allow his team to play with more flair, his own Irish teams were known for their caution. And that was with the likes of Stapleton, Heighway, Brady, Daly and Givens at his disposal.
Trapattoni's seven Serie A titles, three UEFA Cups, two Cup-Winners' Cups and one European Cup would, to the casual observer, suggest that Giles's criticism is slightly misplaced. Especially when the sum total of Giles' managerial honours is one FAI Cup won with the dodgiest penalty of the twentieth century.
