1. All about Robbie Keane as a legend retires
THERE WERE TIMES tonight when the Irish teamโs performance and the game itself felt almost inconsequential, such was the intense focus and goodwill towards Robbie Keane at the Aviva Stadium this evening.
It wasnโt the most spectacular of send-offs โ an exhibition game with Oman in front of 27,300 people is a long way off scoring vital goals in crucial games with Germany and Holland.
Yet as meaningless friendlies and conclusions to international careers go, it wasnโt bad by any means, and Keane got the goal and the win tonight that his 18-and-a-half-year Ireland stint deserved.
Speaking afterwards, the 36-year-old striker was understandably a proud man as he spoke of โformer players, former managers, people around the world wishing me wellโ.
โI just wanted to do well one last time,โ he added. โTo get the goal topped it off.
โAll the players were asking me to sign their jerseys (after the game).
โ(Not playing is) something thatโll hit me over the next few days.โ
Yet it was left to Martin OโNeill at the post-match conference to best sum up the enormity of Keaneโs contribution to Irish football in almost two decades on the international scene following an emotional night at the Aviva Stadium.
โI wonโt see the (goalscoring) record broken in my lifetime and even the youngest in the room here wonโt.โ
2. Hard to learn much against dire Oman side
It was a fitting send-off for Robbie Keane and no one got injured, but those positives aside, Martin OโNeill canโt have learned too much from tonightโs friendly.
Harry Arter showed some nice touches, Jon Walters looked quite sharp and the back four was largely solid.
However, Oman were such poor-quality opposition that you have to take each bright spot with a grain of salt.
The visitors had one decent chance early on, when Keiren Westwood was forced to tip away a header by Al Muqbali, who had been left unmarked from a corner.
Yet that one minor scare aside, the Arab country played very much as you would expect of a side ranked 107th in the world, with some highly inept first-half defending ensuring it would be a comfortable night for the Boys in Green.
3. Attention turns to Serbia
Martin OโNeill will perhaps feel somewhat relieved that tonightโs Oman game is out of the way.
The match itself was always going to be overshadowed by the Robbie Keane sideshow, while the various Irish players involved in Transfer Deadline Day was a further inconvenient distraction.
Now, however, with tonightโs game having gone smoothly in pretty much every sense, OโNeill and co can turn their attention to the main task ahead.
The difficulty of travelling to Serbia cannot be underestimated โ they are a squad filled with promising youngsters such as former Man City centre-back Matija Nastasiฤ, as well as others with Premier League experience, including Chelseaโs Branislav Ivanoviฤ and Southamptonโs Duลกan Tadiฤ.
Speaking afterwards, OโNeill said he was happy with how the evening panned out. Itโs hard to imagine any player radically changing the managerโs plans or thinking as regards next week on the back of that performance, nonetheless it was a useful exercise, with some key players such as Jon Walters getting much-needed game time having not played too much with their clubs so far this season.
Yet it was merely a dress rehearsal at most for the game on Monday in which the Irish team will need to be at their very best in order to secure a positive result.
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What? Itโs not going ahead? That really sucks! Saw the Emerald Isle and Croke Park Classics games and was looking forward to it next year. They better bring in an NFL game to replace it โฆ
No problem with it as long as it doesnโt affect any games. It was a disgrace that an all Ireland SF had to be moved last year to cater for this.
Hopefully it never comes back. Brutal sport. Rather see snooker played in Croker.
Oh ignorance, never fails to amuse me.
Why do non football fans come to a thread about football and feel the need to display their ignorance with negative comments?