FORMER IRISH INTERNATIONAL and football pundit Eamon Dunphy says he was “baffled” by Ireland’s match with Oman last night, questioning why manager Martin O’Neill left out several first-choice players.
A team comprised mostly of fringe players defeated their Asian opponents 2-0, ahead of the team’s opening European Championships qualifier against Georgia on Sunday.
“I thought it was a completely meaningless exercise,” Dunphy told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme. ”It’s a mystery. It was a golden opportunity to play the team that will start against Georgia for an hour. The centre-half partnership of Marc Wilson and John O’Shea have never played together in central defence, for example. It was a golden opportunity for them to play together.”
“You need to get the rhythm and shape together of the team for Sunday. I don’t think the reason [O'Neill] gave, that players are unfit, stands up to scrutiny.”
“If last night was nothing to do with Sunday, and on the face of it it wasn’t, what was the purpose of it? To get 14,000 people into the Aviva?”
However in spite of these issues, Dunphy’s remains confident that Martin O’Neill can deliver success as Ireland manager
“I feel optimistic,” he revealed. “I have great faith in Martin O’Neill and a lot of faith in the players he has at his disposal.
“It is a tough group, there is no doubting that, but the Trapattoni era was a lost era. I think Martin will play the best players and will get the most out of them, so I’m very optimistic indeed.”
Here we go again. Could this be the start of the normal Dunphy rhetoric against an Irish football manager…looks like it to me.
Dunphy makes a habit criticising whichever Irish manager is in charge but I think the point he makes is valid.
Why would O Neill put out out his first eleven and go through the free kick routines four days before a competitive fixture . Talk about showing your hand . Georgia’s analysts would love that .
You play close to your first 11 to get some continuity, it’s not do hard to understand, and it’s vital the players know each other’s game. They don’t have to give away their hand, just play some football together.
So playing some football together in a televised match in the modern era where every team has analysts wouldn’t be giving away your hand ?
What exactly would it give away? They obviously wouldn’t use practiced set piece moves. They Georgians would already have done their homework for the Irish game, they would know what all our individual players are capable of already. The Oman was basically just a run out, nothing to learn from it. it would be move beneficial to our team that the players knew each other’s game instead of finding out during a qualifier.
Im sure he has his best 11 picked in training and they will be playing plenty of practice matches before sunday, O’Neill is no fool.
They may know their individual qualities . Assessing the individual qualities of players is very different to assessing a team as a unit . You are proposing to play the team in a televised match 4 days before they play Georgia. That would be greatly appreciated in Georgia .
No he is right. Last night was a chance to give the first team even 45 minutes to fine tune tactics and combinations ahead of Sunday. The second half could have been used to give lads a run out.
Oh for God’s sake, for years we and the media have been bemoaning the fact that trap would never try and test new combinations of players or formations. Martin o’n goes and tries something different and we’re still giving out. If you can’t do something different against Oman at home then we might as well quit these friendlies altogether.
Phil, do you agree with showing your hand to your opponents four days before you play them ? Talk about naive .
A couple of more matches and dunphy will have O’neill condemned as a spoofer or a charlatan.
We qualified for probably the most competitive international competition and came close to a world cup with Trap.
I agree with Dunphy,but MON knows his stuff and has his reasons,anyway it means nothing,we want 3 points on sunday,that is all that matters,we have a fully fit expierienced squad so lets be positive from the word go.
It’s very important but it’s not all that matters, giving as many players as many opportunities and experience as possible and playing half decent football are also important
ALL that matters sunday is we win,but i agree,we need to improve,but we have already,give it time,Trap is gone,MON will get it right,we appointed a good management team,its up to the players now.
We qualified for probably the most competitive international competition and came close to a world cup with Trap.
Dun do bheal Dunphy, you barstooler.
He’s a barstooler with 23 full international caps for his country . How many full international caps have you ?
Why doesn’t the headline to this article say ” Dunphy very optimistic about Ireland’s chances” ?
Always the bitter word
I was in the AVIVA last night, atmosphere was shockin. Didn’t think there even was 14,000 at it. To be fair, I think Dunphy had a fair point but surely the lads O’Neill left out were nailed on starters (for the most part) anyway, so why not try out a few fringe lads and let them show O’Neill and Keane what they can offer?
Also great to see Given back, always good to have an experienced head around the place.
They could have played it in tallaght, dalymount, thomond or even turners cross
Oi! Eamo! STFU!