Soccer: Emmet Malonelooks at the rise and fall of the Ireland manager and concludes the descent into farce was a comedy waiting to happen

Calamity in the form of serial defeats may prove difficult for a football manager to survive, though some fast talking followed by a couple of wins can often salvage the job. Regular flirtation with comedy, however, almost always proves fatal in top-level coaching.

So, as Paul McShane clattered into Wayne Henderson's back in February at the Serraville stadium in San Marino and Manuel Marani sidefooted a ridiculous goal, it was hard to avoid the feeling we were witnessing the beginning of the end for Steve Staunton.

Of course, in plain footballing terms, Cyprus had been worse. Errors of selection were highlighted by a string of inept performances, but Staunton had at least looked and sounded as shocked and angry as everyone else at the end of that evening in Nicosia.

Distancing yourself from players under your direction is only a short-term defence strategy for a manager, though, and he took a different approach after his side had scraped to victory in San Marino. He talked up the home side and, in doing so, compounded the damage to his already dented standing.

The bare statistics of Ireland's year can be presented with a slant to suit your particular taste. One defeat in 11 sounds more than respectable and even four wins and six draws is not, on the face of it, so bad for a side whose most likely match-winner against decent opposition, Damien Duff, was not fit to contribute after March (by which time three wins had been notched up in as many games).

Only once in those 11 outings did the Irish really look good, though, and that was against a Danish side in enough turmoil to make our own footballing waters look fairly serene.

As he fought to hang on to his job Staunton was clearly not helped by his discomfort around the media. This time there were no suggestions reporters were on his back because they had expected a cosier relationship; there was merely a growing bewilderment among those reporters at his inability to explain his thinking and mounting bemusement at apparent admissions that he communicated little more with his players than he did with the press.

It was funny enough that Staunton would routinely reveal he had never talked to a player he had just called up for the first time, but it really did seem laughable when Caleb Folan was plucked from well-merited obscurity primarily, as the manager explained, on the basis of an appearance on "the Sky".

It was just one example of the sort of stuff that would leave journalists shaking their heads after his press conferences and nothing like as serious as the revelation provided by Steve Finnan during the build-up to the Germany and Cyprus games that, having made the decision to play him at left back rather than in the position he fills for Liverpool, Staunton had never taken the trouble to discuss the matter with him.

Staunton, though, undoubtedly suffered from the unrealistic expectations his fiercest critics within the media were only too happy to feed.

The historic first games at Croke Park produced unspectacular wins that steadied the ship. But in advance of Ireland's visit to Prague the Czech Republic were widely written off as a team in decline despite still possessing numerous players better than most of those available to Ireland.

Having badly handled the second-half defence of his team's lead in Bratislava, Staunton then made the mistake of starting Aiden McGeady on a night when the power and pace of the Czech left back Marek Jankulovski were always going to pose problems.

The winger was overrun and the defender scored the game's only goal.

The Irish manager was obliged by injury to bring on Stephen Hunt, after many pundits had argued that the Reading midfielder should start, but most critics later managed to overlook that the player, having initially made a positive impact, rendered his side's cause all but hopeless by getting sent off for the sort of ridiculous challenge with which he is, unfortunately, increasingly associated.

Karel Bruckner's side, as it happens, went on to live up to their billing as the group's top seeds and a measure of the real gap between his side and Staunton's is that Ireland could have beaten Cyprus home and away, Slovakia and Wales away and Germany at home and picked up a point at the campaign's outset in Frankfurt and still finished behind the Czechs.

In reality, a respectable display against a German side already confident enough of their place in Switzerland and Austria next summer to be talking about training camps didn't do much to improve Staunton's standing among supporters.

By the time Cyprus arrived into Dublin, indeed, the manager's grip on his job was extremely fragile.

Stephen Ireland's departure from the squad in Bratislava had had more than a touch of the absurd about it but by repeatedly lying to his manager the midfielder had further damaged Staunton's credibility.

Nor was Staunton helped by his standard reply to even the most innocuous enquiries from journalists - his "You tell me" becoming a comedy catchphrase.

In the end, though, what did for Staunton was his own inability to master the job he was well paid to do.

Even with his career on the line he declined to start with what would have been commonly regarded as his best side against the Cypriots. And when the team failed, yet again, to perform against manifestly weaker but admittedly well-organised opposition, the former Ireland skipper proved incapable of providing the inspiration those who hired him believed would be available on tap.

Quite what made them expect it remains a mystery. At heart, Staunton seems a decent and likeable guy, but it is almost unimaginable that, given his limited communication skills and lightweight CV, he could have convinced a seriously impartial recruitment panel that he was the best man for the job.

The fact that they opted not even to talk with the likes of Claudio Ranieri, Arie Haan and Terry Venables - all of whom were willing candidates last time around - probably helped his cause, though.

Now that Staunton is gone and a successor is being sought, his legacy is a little difficult to judge. There are signs of an emerging debate on what really can be expected of this group of players, and such a debate would certainly be a good thing.

Staunton did, to be fair, attempt to bring through some of the best young players available, and while the problem was that he sometimes sought to do so too quickly, the likes of McShane, Kevin Doyle and - if he ever returns - Ireland were probably given more opportunities than they would have been by another manager.

The key thing now is that the next man is better equipped to finish the work Staunton started, although it would be nice too if the Republic's next manager were someone with a vision for the wider development of the game here - not something that you would necessarily associate with Terry Venables, the bookies' current front runner.

On the domestic front, meanwhile, the league survived relatively well the virtual collapse of Shelbourne.

True, the progress made in recent years on the European front was halted - at least temporarily - but Drogheda United proved worthy champions and St Patrick's Athletic provided glimpses of the team they aim to become.

Cork City's cup win did much to salvage their season while the likes of Bohemians and Derry City will hope to do better next year.

Talk in recent weeks of the development of an all-Ireland league suggests, however, that the leading clubs will attempt to take a major step forward, leaving questions regarding the futures of the rest.

What we already knew . ..

This group still has some way to go before it can live with Europe's best sides for the duration of a campaign.

What we learned . . .

Stephen Ireland's grannies are both alive and kicking, thank you very much.

What might happen . . .

The Football Association of Ireland might finally get it right . . .this time.