Gavin Cooney reports from Wembley

England 5

Republic of Ireland 0 

LOST FOREVER NOW to the mists of time is the fact that at half-time at Wembley, Ireland had reason to believe in something.

There was a real sense that the baleful fates, which have been inflicting misery on these players since the first of them made their debuts five years ago, had finally relented: England had been held scoreless and were giving the impression of reaching their wit’s end. 

An hour later the same players trooped off the Wembley turn brutally beaten and humiliated again. Liam Scales’ red card within five minutes of the restart triggered a collapse so comprehensive it was almost stunning. 

England knocked in five goals with a contemptuous kind of ease and left Ireland lamenting an ultra-defensive approach that actually proved to be high risk: if that fails, there is nowhere else to turn. 

This was also an England team missing all their starting players bar Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, Jude Bellingham, and Harry Kane, and coached by a guy who is now returning to the U21s. 

Ireland have avoided relegation to League C for now – they’ll have to secure their status in a play-off next March – but they had hoped to use this game as a blueprint for World Cup qualifier games against the top-tier sides next year. Now they will have to worry about the memory of this game become a leaking contagion. 

Heimir Hallgrimsson said before the game that Ireland’s back three system didn’t work against England in September, so then it was mildly baffling to look at the Irish team-sheet and try to piece together a formation. 

The principle underpinning the selection largely appeared to be, Centre-backs! Bring me centre-backs! And so Mark McGuinness made a shock senior debut from the off, and Dara O’Shea was recalled too. They replaced a full-back (Matt Doherty) and a winger (Mikey Johnston), and so Hallgrimsson pulled out an old trick from his Jamaica days, with a centre-back stepping into midfield. 

It was Nathan Collins who did so, effectively as a kind of magnetic pole of repulsion: he stood in midfield to force England out wide, and cut off the centre to Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. When the ball went wide, Collins dropped into Ireland’s defensive line and allowed the full-backs – O’Shea and Callum O’Dowda – press out to their opponents.

There they were assisted by Ireland’s tireless wingers, Festy Ebosele and Sammie Szmodics – and in the first half Ireland achieved what Hallgrimsson said at the outset he sought to do: control the game without the ball. 

Instead they controlled space, pushing England into areas in which they were less dangerous. 

Strategy was only plank of Ireland’s resolve, as it rested on attitude too. All of the Irish players sprung into challenges with a kind of religious zeal. The general air of the game helped them in this respect, with the pre-game pageantry wreathed in rancour. 

The FA decided to have British military personnel walk out and wave about a few generic flags, which was met by boos from the Irish fans. The English fans then booed the Irish anthem, before the Irish fans booed the English anthem.

Amid it all, Caoimihín Kelleher had to make only one save in the first half, blocking with his feet a Noni Madueke pull-back after Josh Cullen lost possession shortly after winning it back. 

Otherwise England bridled and chafed. Bellingham was booked for dissent; Kane took a yellow for tossing Jayson Molumby to the ground after he was deemed to have had the temerity of getting too close.

Heimir Hallgrimsson. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

It was instead Ireland who had the right to hold a legitimate grievance. When Evan Ferguson chased down a loose ball down the edge of the penalty area, he tangled with Marc Guehi and they both fell to ground. Replays showed Guehi had a fistful of Ferguson’s shirt, but the referee and VAR were unmoved. 

The first-half, then, was the first Irish sighting of Heimir Hallgrimsson’s SufferBall, where it wasn’t clear which team was doing the suffering. 

Alas, that question was definitively answered within five minutes of the restart. When Ferguson mislaid a pass just inside his own half, Ireland were suddenly caught open for the first time. England could not have acted more ruthlessly. 

Kane speared a stunning pass into the penalty area for Bellingham, who jinked inside Liam Scales and had his feet swept from beneath him. Scales had been booked in the first half for kicking the ball away to delay an England restart, and the referee quickly booked him again. Kane then completed the horror triptych by converting his penalty. 

So while Ireland might have been able to control the game without the ball, they certainly couldn’t do so without the ball and a player.

Ireland approached this game believing in a single, narrow but flinty idea: Kane’s penalty killed it. Thus they were utterly demoralised, and were left with nothing which to believe. 

Hello, darkness, our old friend. I see you’ve come to goad us once again. 

England would thus decide the scoreline. 

It was 3-0 within five minutes: first a Collins clearance took a slapstick deflection off Cullen to fall perfectly for Anthony Gordon at the back post, and then Conor Gallagher stabbed home from the same spot as he met Guehi’s flick on from a corner. 

Lee Carsley emptied his bench and this provoked more hideous enthusiasm. 

Ireland stood on their heels to watch England roll a free-kick to Jarrod Bowen, who swept it into the corner. 4-0. 

Then Bellingham floated a gorgeous cross into the box for Taylor Harwood-Bellis to head in his first England goal. 5-0. 

Harwood-Bellis is engaged to Roy Keane’s daughter, and Keane was here on punditry duty with ITV. Who knows which he will find more difficult: the hurt at his country’s humiliation or the fact he will have to publicly praise his future son-in-law. 

England didn’t quite declare at five, with Kelleher beating away a couple of shots to stave off an even greater humiliation. 

Truly, what hope have we of making it to the next World Cup?