MARTIN O’NEILL REMAINS upbeat about Ireland’s qualification chances despite the team’s loss to Scotland in a crucial qualifier on Friday.
A Shaun Maloney goal 15 minutes from time was enough, as Ireland lost out at the expense of their Group D rivals.
Yet despite this blow, O’Neill said he would have taken seven points at this stage if offered to him at the start of the campaign.
“Would I have taken the points at this minute? I probably would. Would I reverse the scores from Scotland and Germany? Perhaps.
“We have to help ourselves and get help from the crowd when Poland and Scotland get here from the Aviva.
“There’s massive disappointment at this minute because we didn’t get anything from the game, but it’s not gloom, doom and despair.”
And while conceding that the Irish team underperformed last Friday, the Derry native feels Scotland weren’t much better.
“These games have been tight. We’re playing away from home. We didn’t play brilliantly. I thought Scotland didn’t play brilliantly.
“The game was disrupted by fouls, a stop-start game. You’d expect Scotland to have more of the ball, but statistically speaking, it wasn’t that much more.
“We still have to win at home — everything depends on what happens in our home matches.”
As for tonight’s opponents, O’Neill admitted to being familiar with some players more than others.
“There’s quite a number of players I recognise from World Cup duty and new players I don’t recognise so well.
“It’ll be a test for us. I thought they played brilliantly in the World Cup.”
Originally published 06.15
I hope Conor beats Dos Anjos but I think John is getting ahead of himself by already talking about fighting for the welterweight belt. Conor beating Dos Anjos is by no means a forgone conclusion.
It’s all to build hype and promote him, it’s just good business!
Will be interesting to see how Khabib gets on in his comeback. Can see him being a real threat to Conor at lightweight, presuming he gets past RDA first. As for welterweight, Robbie Lawlor looked under par against Condit and honestly should have lost the belt, if that version of Lawlor turned up against Conor, Conor would beat him imo
Conor the only decent fighter out of all of sbg the rest are rubbish really bad compared to fighters in the ufc it’s like there not being trained properly or some thing Gunnar Nelson should get out of there while he has the chance his skilled are being wasted staying at sbg
Doesn’t SBG team as a whole have the UFC featherweight world title? Mustn’t be doing to bad.
@ GMan, yes one belt, because they have a good fighter.. but has OP said, the rest are pants.. really poor. Gunnar got owned in last fight, he was dominated.. Paddy was dominated in his fight headlining in 3Arena so they need a lot of improvement as they are just limited at that level..
Well to be fair Gunnar Nelson’s last fight was against one of the best Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the world, I think he’s one a few World Championships. And just because they’re not all challenging for belts doesn’t mean their bad fighters, Top 15 in the UFC, which Nelson was before the fight, I’m not sure if he still is, is still very impressive.
No pleasing some people.
SBG has Conor, Gunnar, Aisling Daly and the Hooligan all on UFC roster, the only other fighters I can think of are Norman Parke and Neil Seery fighting out of other gyms, so to have 4 from one gym isn’t to shabby at all, everyone wants to be an MMA critic until they get a punch in the face.
And lest we forget about the terrible tale of cathal pendred
Yeah it’s s terrible tale alright … Cathal achieved more in a short time span than most of us can ever dream of — now he’s invested some of his money into a business for himself … Terrible tale indeed
@shay lynch Conor only a “decent” fighter?? What’s a fella gotta do!! Gunnar not stuck in SBG he trains in Iceland alot now, and got his next level jits skills from Renzo Gracie in NY. So he’s been around with the best. Conors just next level, the difference in what he’s got over others incl Gunnar is not at all down to SBG
@The destroyer
if we use your way of thinking,Mighty Mouse,Robbie Lawlor and Dominic Cruz should all leave their gyms because they are the only champions that train there? Kavanagh and McGregor have a bond that goes way beyond a fighter/trainer relationship,like the way tyson did wit cus d’amato. They both bring out the best in each other. And seeing as just a few years ago SBG was a shed out a backyard and how far they have come in a short space of time goes to show how quickly THEY are helping MMA grow in this country. Maybe the talent pool isnt as strong in SBG as it is in AKA or Winkeljohn’s gym but this is a relatively new sport over here. also remember that fighters like McGregors and Jon Jones are freaks,once in a generation type of fighters.
Sbg is an international gym and they have several other gyms around the world.
And floods and floods of talent everywhere I may add.
@john mccann good points there… McGregor and Jones etc are unique they’d be class no matter what gym they trained at. And people also forget JK is a grappling not striking coach – Conor hasn’t learnt all his skills in SBG… but clearly the coaching goes beyond that
I don’t care who fights who as long as someone gets they’re face kicked in. Now I’m gonna watch best of the best then go bully some nerds
Their* good lad
Ah here. You just deleted my comment for the second time. It in no way contains any content that violates the rules of this site so I’ll ask again why was it deleted?
I figured it out. John is Anti-Craic.
Im going to ask it again sure, when is mcgregor fighting the undertaker? and why is that question a violation of this sites rules?
Maybe John only likes funny jokes.
Maybe man, jokes on him though, looks like the clown deleting comments regardless if they are slightly childish or not.
Yeah, I agree. These people love deleting comments. I know your pain!
If conor teamed up with the 1 2 3 kid he could hold the world, intercontinental and tag team belts at the same time..
Wait, you think John Kavanagh logs into the 42.ie to delete comments? Really? You do know he just writes the piece and lets the site admins look after everything else don’t you?
Hi John, was Aisling not hoping to get on the Zagreb card?
It will never happen, they just playing mind games with RDA
Sshhhhh!! Don’t tell him!!
Let’s get past RDA first yeah
John should be worried that Conor’s reputation and legacy will be tarnished if he is constantly given the vip treatment and ushered into one championship match after another. No other fighter has ever got this sort of preferential treatment. He needs to face the other aspiring champs who are on the UFC roster like everyone else. Conor has a chance to be one of the all time greats; don’t ruin his legacy by letting UFC allow him to cut corners. As his coach John should at least raise this issue with him.