They got there in the end, as we all presumed they would. The goals to beat Gibraltar were always in the post but the longer it went here without someone delivering, the worse it looked for Stephen Kenny. On a night when he had some making up to do with the Irish support, Mikey Johnston, Evan Ferguson and Adam Idah did him a big favour.
Kenny’s base has always been the crowds that come to Ireland’s home matches. In any referendum on his tenure, he’d generally have little to worry about as long as the match-going public made up the electorate. Even when results have gone against his side, he has usually been able to rely on them.
There’d be nights you’d come to Lansdowne and the crowd would make it their business to show up for their manager. Maybe there’d been a bit of pundit noise in the build-up or one of those nettlesome draws that should have been wins was hanging in the air. But whatever the motivation, once his name was read out, they’d make it their business to show that they were conspicuously, ostentatiously Team Kenny.
In febrile times, are we to read anything into the less than full-throated chorus that greeted Kenny’s name here? Maybe, maybe not. It could well have been the combination of a Monday night in high summer sunshine, a half-empty stadium, the fact that it was Gibraltar and nobody was getting giddy about anything. It could have been that.
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But it’s hard not to arrive at the conclusion that something was broken in Athens last Friday. It wasn’t the defeat – God knows Ireland have had defeats before under Kenny. It wasn’t even just the performance either. It was the fact that Kenny got schooled by his opposite number, Gus Poyet. He was comprehensively outcoached in the full view of everyone.
That kind of thing tends to wipe out your benefit-of-the-doubt reserves. An Ireland manager without goodwill is an Ireland manager without a future. Suddenly the questions become a lot more pointed and the mass of people willing to defend him dwindles alarmingly.
[ Ireland fail to impress as they make heavy work of victory over GibraltarOpens in new window ]
[ Jason Knight most impressive as Stephen Kenny’s team get the job doneOpens in new window ]
So when Ireland spent the whole first half here playing against the 201st-ranked nation in the world with three central defenders and a sitting midfielder, it was hard to paint it as anything other than an over-cautious selection. In a game that was always going to be about trying to pick a lock on the edge of the Gibraltar box, what exactly was the need for John Egan, Nathan Collins, Dara O’Shea and Josh Cullen all to be on the pitch together?
Collins played most of the half as a sort of auxiliary inside right. With no defending to do, he served as a link-man-cum-wall-ball, either trying to put Jason Knight away on the outside or recycling possession to Cullen inside him. The big Leixlip man has many worthy talents but nobody would mistake him for an ankle-waggling schemer in the attacking third.
And so Ireland plugged away, dutifully working the ball out to the wings and back into the centre and waiting for gaps and trying cutbacks and battering in crosses and carving out half chances. There was no pace to it, no trickery, no zip.
And all the while, the crowd talk amongst itself, the chatter and burble sounding like the half-hour before lunch at a Lord’s test match.
Until half-time arrived, that is. At which point, some in the crowd started to boo. You wouldn’t say it was especially loud or vicious and it definitely didn’t ring around the ground. But the sound was unmistakable all the same. Ireland hadn’t scored, Gibraltar hadn’t looked in trouble and the message from the seats was clear.
Not good enough. Can’t go on like this.
The thing about losing the benefit of the doubt is that even the good you do gets questioned. Kenny changed things around at the break, bringing on Johnston for Collins and reconfiguring to a 4-3-3. And it worked – Johnston was terrific in the 45 minutes he spent on the pitch, scoring the first goal and constantly beating Gibraltar defenders to make space and create danger. By any cold analysis, it was the winning of the game.
But the stink of the Greece game hangs in the air still. And so instead of being hailed as having pulled off a managerial masterstroke with his in-game substitution, Kenny has to answer the question of why Johnston wasn’t in the team from the start. This game obviously needed a dribbler – everyone could see it. Why couldn’t the Ireland manager?
Something has shifted. It’s going to be so, so hard for Kenny to shift it back.
