With time running out against Armenia in Yerevan a fortnight ago they were putting the ball into the mixer like a karaoke act singing the greatest hits from the heyday of Big Cas and Big Niall.
Four days later in Dublin against Ukraine they were repeating the same tune, with Big Shane up from the back once again, trying in vain to get his head onto something that might be bundled over the line.
In both cases Ireland were so desperate for a goal that neither they, nor their manager, could any longer afford their principles. Pass and move had vanished in the heat of their urgency; lump it into the box was suddenly back in fashion. Stephen Kenny’s new model army was reverting to the hoariest old comfort blanket from Ireland’s dustiest playbook.
Then lo and behold, last Tuesday night in Lodz, with time once more running down, the mixer was out and the sophistication was back in vogue.
Kenny’s two years in charge of the men’s national team can be described in many ways but fundamentally it has been about a struggle for identity, a gravitational battle between present and past, a striving towards modernism with an iron ball and chain fastened to both ankles. It is still unresolved. The creative tension between old and new will resume again in September, away to Scotland and at home to Armenia.
So, it would be a bit premature to come to any conclusions. Still, it might be worth noting that in the 87th minute last Tuesday, Ireland stitched together a phase of possession that lasted 57 uninterrupted seconds, made up of 22 passes. They worked it left and right, forward and back, sideline to sideline, until eventually they found a pocket of space and Conor Hourihane was sliding in Callum Robinson deep inside the Ukraine penalty area with Chiedozie Ogbene and Jeff Hendrick actually in the six-yard box waiting for the cross. Robinson’s delivery was tame and the offside flag was up anyway.
But, as a sign-off for the summer, it was a symbolic flourish with which to finish the four-game swing that had begun so horribly in Yerevan ten days earlier. Kenny’s original vision was still breathing, even though it had been battered and beleaguered by its many punishing encounters with reality over the previous two years.
Those encounters included a couple of nasty moments against Scotland in Dublin eight days ago when Irish attempts to play the ball out from the back came perilously close to being punished with goals. They were very lucky to escape unscathed.
The manager has had a few corners knocked off his early idealism through the chastening medium of the scoreboard. But as those incidents last Saturday graphically demonstrated, he needs to have a few more knocked off before the sensible balance between risk and reward is reached.
If Scotland had got the first goal, as they should, he was staring down the barrel of the ultimate punishment in his line of work. The 1-0 in Yerevan and 0-1 against Ukraine in Dublin had left him under pressure again, with the tom-tom beats about unrest in FAI headquarters being drummed in the press by Kenny sceptics who can validly point to his dismal ratio after 19 competitive matches: three wins, eight draws, eight defeats. It remains by some distance the worst run of results by any manager of the national team ever.
Another defeat, against the Scots, with Ukraine looming in Lodz three days later, might have created unstoppable momentum towards the exit door. But then they skittled Scotland 3-0 and with one bound our hero was free.
As it happened, the goals managed to embody that ongoing identity crisis. The all-important opener came via the head of Shane Duffy from a corner, with Alan Browne bundling home the knockdown from point blank range. If it was to be strictly faithful to Irish history, the ball would have ricocheted off Browne’s backside amidst a heap of flailing bodies, after which he could jovially remark in post-match interviews that he didn’t know much about it but he was claiming it anyway. Anyhow, it ricocheted off some part of his anatomy from two yards out so it was close enough to an agricultural job in any case.
The second had a bit of a mix of old and new, Caoimhín Kelleher going long on his kick-out after Duffy had seconds earlier tried to pass out from the six-yard box with almost catastrophic consequences. Troy Parrott got something on the Kelleher long ball, at which point the Jack Charlton retro act ended and we were catapulted into 2022, courtesy of Michael Obafemi’s dink which was so exquisitely weighted it positively waited in the air for Parrott to arrive on cue and nod it home.
The third, Obafemi’s walloper from some 28 yards, was pure Bobby Charlton, not Jack, which is to say it belongs to the canon of classic strikes from any era. But the build-up was reminiscent of the best of old Irish with Browne and Jayson Molumby digging the ball out of midfield with a couple of full-blooded tackles and Parrott playing it first-touch to Obafemi who uncorks the Champagne. Phew, what a scorcher.
A strike of that calibre does not belong to any manager or any era but if Kenny can be said to have had an input, it may have been in the culture he and Keith Andrews are trying to build. Which is to say, empowering their charges to take risks and play with some element of unconscious freedom when they are on the ball. The manager and his coach do seem to want their players expressing themselves a bit more fluidly in their passing and movement.
Then again, Obafemi seems to be the type of fella who might decide to play with a bit of freedom anyway, to the extent that if his manager doesn’t grant him the licence to do it, he’ll grant it to himself and not bother too much about asking for permission.
Of course, the outstanding demonstration of that attitude came from Nathan Collins last Tuesday night. It might not be much of an exaggeration to say a star was born in Lodz. The Leixlip lad turned 21 on April 30. Already he is a commanding player with an apparent instinct to dominate his position. He is tall and strong, as any commanding centre-half should be; but he is also fast over the ground and unusually dexterous on his feet too, for a player of his physique and position.
Mentally he also looks ready for the big stage. He revealed the full repertoire of those qualities with his goal against the Ukrainians. It looked and felt like a landmark goal, one of the best scored in Irish history and perhaps the moment that launched his career on the elite stage. We’re getting ahead of ourselves here, obviously, but this looks like a high-end Premier League player in the making and a future Ireland captain. Asked after the debacle in Yerevan what Ireland needed to improve on, his reply was impressively decisive: “Everything.” That sounds like a leader talking.
With Collins emerging in the anchor defensive role, Kelleher or Gavin Bazunu behind him in goals, and the trio of Knight, Molumby and Cullen in midfield, plus a combination up front permed from Parrott, Obafemi, Ogbene, Robinson and Idah, it looks like Kenny has finally got the personnel on his hands to mould into a progressive international side. It is starting to look very much like his project now.
They are young, most of them, and evidently hungry and aspirational too. Most of them still have a long way to travel in the club game; we are not talking the upper end of the market here. But it’s the best the manager can hope for right now, and a lot better than where it was less than 12 months ago.
Famous last words, perhaps, but maybe, just maybe, Yerevan and Ukraine in Dublin were the darkest hour before the dawn. The final darkest hour. There’s been a few of them, sez you, and there might well be a few more. But Scotland and Lodz did feel like the turning of a corner for real. We’ve turned a few of those too, sez you again, only to run into another brick wall. Fair enough.
But this time — this time — the light at the end of the tunnel feels more like the summer solstice than that of its winter sister
