Enda McEvoy: Have soccer and hurling got what they deserved?
TIMES UP: Stephen Kenny was a victim of the system as much as he was a failure in the Ireland job. With a good team, capable of playing the kind of football he preached, he might have been a good Irish manager, argues our columnist.
This is how Stephen Kenny’s tenure ends. Not with a bang but with a game of bingo. The predictabilities all present, receipted and filed.
A 1-1 draw against lowly opposition, in this case the team ranked 103rd in the world? Put a ring around that number (or whatever it is bingo players do).
Ireland seeking to play progressive, incisive football but failing miserably? Another ring.
A goal not only conceded via the inevitable shot from outside the box but also arriving within 15 minutes of the restart? Whoa, two for the price of one. Who didn’t have this particular pair on their card?
The confirmation, half an hour prior to kickoff on Tuesday night, that the government had suspended €6.8m in funding to the FAI for various sins of commission and omission?
Fabulous. The full monty. “House!”
So four years after the departure of He Who Must Not Be Named, the FAI still can’t be left to their own devices. Who’da thunk it, eh? Even Jonathan Hill, appointed as the next CEO and general new broom, wound up getting sucked into the hellmouth.
Avoiding going 20 grand over and above the limit set out in the memorandum of understanding with the government ought not to have been a difficult concept to grasp. Did the FAI think they were Everton or something? Come to think of it, were the FAI the people running Everton these past few years? It’d certainly explain one or two things.
About Stephen Kenny, all that remains to be said is that he was a victim of the system as much as he was a failure in the job. With a good team, capable of playing the kind of football he preached, he might have been a good Irish manager. With this team he couldn’t be.
Watching Ireland attempting to retain and recycle possession in Amsterdam seven nights ago was like watching a man attempting to walk on stilts. On ice. While balancing a basketball on his head.
A flabby touch or stray pass was ever only half a moment away – understandable when three of the midfielders hailed from Southampton, Burnley and Preston North End. Good job the hosts fielded a midfield of Schouten, Reijnders and Hartman as opposed to one of Neeskens, Van Hanegem and Jansen, with W Weghorst up top instead of J Cruyff.
Thus, fortunately, it ended 1-0 instead of 4-0, albeit through no fault of their opponents.
One thing to Kenny’s credit in a perverse kind of way was the fact he didn’t cut his cloth to match the material at his disposal. A more pragmatic man would have had Ireland playing more pragmatic – ie dull, percentagey – stuff and obtaining marginally better results.
So what? If Ireland will never be Guardiola’s Barcelona, or even Modric’s Croatia, they’re not obliged to be Egil Olsen’s Norway either.
The world doesn’t need that. Ireland don’t need that.
All told it was a bad week for large sporting bodies here, with the GAA receiving a richly deserved shellacking for their wheeze of trying to solve one of the issues facing the weakest hurling counties – ie the lack of quality competitive action against teams of their own station – by graciously granting them even less competitive action against teams of their own station.
Among the outraged parties were Fermanagh, who outlined their outrage in informative and cogent fashion. The county had, they pointed out, restarted their junior hurling championship; Luca McCusker represented Ireland in the recent shinty international against Scotland; they won Division 3B of the National League last year; and when they beat Mayo back in February the Ederney pitch was swamped with young fans seeking photos and autographs.
“To deny our hurlers the opportunity to represent their county on fewer occasions than other counties would be a travesty and detrimental to the development of hurling in Fermanagh. The success of our county team has helped excite and encourage future generations of hurlers.”
And leave it alone to Dónal Og Cusack, who got well and truly stuck in. Dónal Og being a good man for the zingers, herewith a sample of the bullets he fired.
And much, much more!!!
Reading his perfectly accurate, entirely unobjectionable comments, the thought occurred that if Croke Park were serious about the sport they’d appoint Dónal Og as director of hurling, give him a proper budget and let him off. Really.
“But he’d be an absolute pain in the neck,” you may respond. Precisely, which is what would make him the ideal man for the job.
Cusack hasn’t lost the celestial fire or the crusading zeal. One trusts he never will. And for a man who both played a role in advancing the discussion on LGBT rights and helped reduce the monolith that was the Cork county board to a shell of its former self, sorting out a few cheese-paring secretaries and treasurers farther afield would be a piece of cake.
Bottom line from the week?
Fermanagh are the improbable leaders of the Resistance; the Irish midfield cannot protect the ball; and hurling and soccer here are where they are partly because down the decades the good guys didn’t shout hard enough, loud enough or long enough.
Looking at it that way, far from both sports not getting what they deserved, maybe they did get what they deserved.
Every National Hunt season is different. Every National Hunt season is the same.
Familiar names reappear. Old friends. Rocks of reassurance and stability in a world gone mad. Good to see you again, lads.
Side by side with them are the unfamiliar names, some of them exciting new prospects that will quickly make an impression and instantly have their form placed under a microscope, to be poked and prodded from multiple angles.
Might he be a Cheltenham contender? What races has he been entered in there? Has there been money for him yet? What’s the word from the stable? Will he come up the hill?
The mileposts on the road to Mecca each season are old friends too.
What used to be the Hennessy at Newbury in late November. Cheltenham’s December meeting. The King George at Kempton on December 26th. The Christmas meeting at Leopardstown and the Dublin festival of racing there in early February. All the tributaries that lead to Cheltenham and Aintree in springtime.
What’s more we have Rachael, nothing less than a national heroine, to look out for every day she rides. And how many races will Willie plunder at Cheltenham? And might this finally be Gordon Elliott’s season as leading trainer?
Today at Punchestown there’s State Man in the Morgiana Hurdle and Flooring Porter, twice a Cheltenham winner, in the novice chase. Galopin Des Champs goes in the feature event tomorrow and the 2/1 about him to retain chasing’s blue riband may look generous if he lines up fit and well at 3.30pm on March 15th.
All that glorious uncertainty. The journey begins this weekend. For them and for us.
Athlone Town Women: Put away some cracking penalties to win the Cup at Tallaght Stadium last Sunday. Practice does not ensure perfection. But it usually helps.
Las Vegas: One of the practice sessions was washed out, Carlos Sainz was ambushed by a drain cover yet the inaugural local Grand Prix proved to be a roaring success. Only in Vegas.
In danger of being lost to terrestrial TV. Would rugby, as Owen Farrell rightly wonders, maintain its audience behind a paywall?
Blamed his 2014 arrest for driving under the influence on “prejudice against wealthy white men”. In the words (almost) of Tammy Wynette, sometimes it’s hard to be the billionaire owner of the Indianapolis Colts.
