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Dublin: 5 °C Friday 24 May, 2013

Open thread: How do you think tonight’s Ireland match will go?

Under-fire manager Giovanni Trapattoni leads his side out in a must-win qualifier against the Faroe Islands tonight.

Marc Wilson training yesterday.
Marc Wilson training yesterday.
Image: INPHO/Donall Farmer

THE END IS NEAR for Signor Trapattoni, it would seem.

Ireland are in Torshavn for what is just their third game of the current World Cup qualifying campaign but if reports that the FAI are ready to cut their losses with the Italian, tonight could soon be remembered as the last time he took charge of the Boys in Green.

Whatever happens after the final whistle, there are still 9o minutes of football to be played and due to the unavailability of several regular names on the teamsheet, tonight’s starting XI actually looks quite a promising one.

There are first competitive starts for Robbie Brady and Marc Wilson, who come into a team already possessing youth in Seamus Coleman and James McCarthy.

We follow Wilson for a long time,” Trap said yesterday. “He has a good technical quality, he is also a little bit fresh. (Stephen) Ward has a swollen knee but that’s not the reason (he doesn’t start). We need fresh players and more energy. Two or three changes could be very important.”

Returning captain Robbie Keane has said they owe the country for the shambles that was last Friday and added that he has been trying to “rally the troops” in training this week.

Ireland have beaten the Faroes, who are ranked 130 places below us in the FIFA rankings, on the two occasions that the sides met previously and normally you would expect the result to be a foregone conclusion.

However, preparations have been far from ideal and it will be interesting to see if Ireland can recover from what has been a strenuous couple of days.

Kick off is 7pm tonight so, how do you think it’ll go?

Let us know in the comments section below.

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Comments (99 Comments)

  • Rob Q 16/10/12 #

    Let’s face it these are an amateur outfit Ireland are playing tonight. If we can’t get a result and a comfortable one at that, it will be more than Trap that has to take a serious look at themselves.

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  • Scrappy two nil win for Ireland, maybe even two one.

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    • Yep, reckon a 2 – 0 to Ireland too. I think they’ll be late goals though – 70 minutes plus.

      It’s time for a change in management though. Even if the new fella doesn’t do brilliantly we need to try something different instead of just stumbling along with the same players and the same system (having said that I do actually like the starting 11 for tonight, but don’t think Trap would have picked that team if he had everyone available).

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  • Ireland to labour to a 2 – 0 victory. One goal coming from the penalty spot. No matter what the result, whether Trap stays or goes has already been decided.

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  • Ireland to win courtesy of a last minute deflection off the arse of a low flying seagull!

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  • Whale meat again! A heroic display by the home team punctuated by near misses from the visitors. Much falling over in the box with increasingly irate whinging tirades from Keane. Miraculous saves
    from the home goalkeeper who,on leave from the day job, discovers his mojo. At least one sending off, possibly McGeady who having been startled from a reverie inspecting the synthetic surface, actually tackles an opponent, somewhat rashly perhaps. Oh, and an own goal perpetrated by, say, O’Dea , who having failed miserably to put one away on Friday, has since put in the hard yards practicing own goals during a special one on one session with Trap late in to Sunday night. Andrews’ Herculean efforts plugging the holes in midfield are to no avail and having had enough of the pantomime, attempts to be sent off by imposing scything tackles on the opposition and having no truck with the Azerbaijani referee, self immolates on the half way line! Trap elaborates on the ” leetle things that trip you up” in post match valedictory tirade.

    from an inspired.

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  • Ronan 16/10/12 #

    The highest ranked team that Ireland under Trap have beaten competitively is Armenia…. scary … he needs to go !

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  • Jason 16/10/12 #

    1-0 Ireland, doesn’t matter who we play or the quality of opposition we always struggle for multiple goals because of our playing style.
    With the current mood in the Irish camp I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost or drew either!

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  • If Ireland loose to the Faeroe Islands it would have to be with the players actively aiming to do so.

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  • 5-1 Ireland. Ireland to be awarded 2 penalties. Irish scorers: Keane (3), Brady, McCarthy. o’dea to be sent off. temporary floodlight failure and a dog to run onto the pitch.

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  • Dunne, McClean & Long in for O’Dea, McGeady & Keane & that’s probably our best team, hopefully a good performance, a win & a clean sheet to get our road to rio back on track!!!

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  • If we win tonight,it’ll be just papering over the cracks.There is no point in calling for Trapp to be sacked if John Delaney is still there.Delaney should be forced out,he is a disgrace and he is a joke.Let’s not forget it’s Delaney’s fault that it’s going to cost us to get rid of Trapp.Time for him to go and take Trapp with him!!!!

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    • It could deja vus all over again. San Marino away – the winner from Stephen Ireland four minutes into injury time and the cracks were papered over for Stan. Ironically the nil all draw a few months later in Croke Park was a dissapointment! How the green machine has rusted into reverse.

      We do have the players to play we used to and still can.

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  • Ireland will win by more than one goal, Trap will say its 2 wins from 3 and the loss to germany was expected and we will be in the same position as we were had we lost one nil to Germany.
    He wont go of his own accord and the FAI wont want to sack him due to the cash involved.
    theres a few bad months ahead either way with the poor football on show. I cant see many people forking out to see ‘glamour friendlies’ against Greece and Poland so expect the FAI to be even less likely to sack him when they have empty nights at the Aviva

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  • Will not be watching, have a lot of paint to watch drying.

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  • Badly!

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  • Sandy 16/10/12 #

    100000000-nil

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  • robbie keane to score first and ireland to win 4-1 thats a tastety 50/1 in the bookies I HAD A DREAM!

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  • I want a win. But i want a loss to so we can dump Trap.

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  • Let me see. The Germans could only get 3 past them, they almost beat the swedes, we are drowning but maybe with a grotesque, ugly, brutal and useless performance we may scrape something. Maybe. All is not right in that dressing room.

    Smacks of AVB at Chelsea! A new manager turned all of that too easily.

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  • If the players stop acting like spoilt brats and start putting the effort in they will win easily ..robbie brady will tear this defence apart .. Can u imagine a united player refusing to get on a flight with alex ferguson ???? He’d be tossed out over the irish sea at 30,000 feet …. Cant keep blaming the manager for everything 3 points today and we’ve a few months off to get it sorted ..

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  • I am on Faroe Islands double chance (win or draw) at 5/2. Ireland are a complete shambles where i think their problems will eventually surface again tonight. Trappatoni to be sacked by tomorrow.

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  • I hear that the a group of Irish supporters are starting a campaign to boycott all future matches in the Aviva until Delaney & Trap are fired!

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  • G 16/10/12 #

    We will probably get a win but it is a mark of how far we have fallen that we are even considering an alternative here. Very few of the the Faroes players would get a game in the league of ireland after all.

    The saddest part of Irish football is that we have to wait for near disaster before anything is done. It was obvious even before the euros that Trapattoni was a chancer, something should have been done then. We have wasted years and left the team in an awful state.
    To hear him claiming last night that he has discovered players like Coleman and Mcarthy makes me sick, both of those lads should have a dozen or so caps under their belt at this stage and be much more at home on the international stage. How can you take credit for discovering players who have played in the premiership for two years!

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  • Win tonight, 3:1, and our qualification hopes are still alive. Maybe Brady to score.
    The real victory though is if Trap departs by the end of the week.
    I’m genuinely terrified though that if we win, Trap will remain in charge, which would be a disaster, so part of me is hoping for a draw. We won’t lose though.
    Delaney’s future is on the line this week too, he may just decide to sack Trap to save his own hide.

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  • 3-1 Ireland.

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  • Just cant even comment on here anymore about our team ,just cant put myself and my little girl go trough all that crappy football again,,We had some great times watching Ireland playing some good fotty over the years ,,think we will just go for a long walk 2nite while the match is played ,,Thanks Trap for making the 2 of us loose our love for our football team ,,Wont b posting on here again ,,from a bloke that used to love our team ,,ps hope Ireland win 2nite ,

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  • It’ll be a load of Trapp :) i feel sorry for the lads – it must be so hard to get motivated to play given the sentiment of the Irish people.

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  • Match abandoned after 50 minutes due to fog at nil-nil. Delaney to buy pints all round, and Trap to comment on how if it wasn’t for the fog we would have managed an away draw, which is all we can hope for with the current players at his disposal.

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  • Will be watching as a proud, albeit not very optimistic, Irishman. Ireland will win, Keane will score, but that means he won’t be dropped for Shane Long, which is a travesty!

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  • Darren O’Dea hat-trick and Ireland to win 10-0, at 1000/1 on PP, get in there

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  • I’ll stick my head on the block and say we’ll win comfortably. Very attacking team, young lads with a point to prove and a response from the team to the debacle on Friday. Ireland under Trap have tended to beat teams ranked lower than us. We’ll know whether I’m right or not later…

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    • Most sensible comment I have seen, comfortably win 3-0. Sure the brand of football we are playing is not conducive to ever playing attacking football but when that same brand (set up to not concede) concedes 6 goals – its time to realize it ain’t working.nWe still have a good team, plenty of attacking potential and this may be first time (exception Paris) where we see the team play. Sad to say it after 10 years of awaiting qualification, to finally have the privilege of following my country amongst the elite – but time to go Trap! nOn a side note lets not loose faith Sweden are no better then what we faced in previous two groups – still think we will get second place…. Even if we get a new manager, why write this campaign off?? To early to do that…..

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  • why is everyone being so negative we were beat by a world class team the other night god damm! no wonder this country is on its arse to many people to many comment do something about it put on your jersey and support your team.

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    • Mark, have you forgotten that even Staunton managed to draw with them at home? Have you forgotten that they put six past us? Are the players better than that – you know most are!! We should have done better. On a different day with a different attitude, maybe a different style of play, maybe a better selection we would have done better.

      Are you OK with our results in the Euros, are you happy with our performance in Kazakhstan? As mentioned elswehere, the highest ranking team that we have beaten recently is almighty Armenia!

      Cop on to yourself and open your eyes, take the green tinted glasses off. Think about it the recent history. Think also about the FAI buffoonary – namely multi millionare Delaney, the fans bozzing buddy, the man who negotiated the millions for Trap – before the Euro disaster. Another great man!

      Don’t blindly follow – do your bit to try and bring the change that is needed.

      I have season tickets in the Aviva for 3 of my boys and myself and will keep going – but FFS, even you must see that there is something rotten – shirley!

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    • Don’t call me Shirley…

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  • hopefully we scrape a goal in extra time for a 1-1 and Giovanni to be shown the Trap door

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  • James 16/10/12 #

    Draw

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  • 1-2 to Ireland. We’ll win a Penalty for a dive in the last 5 minutes.

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  • Despite the lingering pain and shame of last week I’m feeling optimistic and going for the Irish win. Keano to score two…..

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  • 2-0 Ireland

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  • all the begrugerz LEAVE IT OUT

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  • we will just about win but trap will still get the bullet 2morr thank god sick listening him try talk English..

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  • Surely we’ve played them more than twice?

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  • Is there actually any team that ever lost to Faroes? But San Marino? They must be one of the worst teams in the world. Even consideration of losing with them is laughable itself.

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    • Didn’t Brian Kerr manage them when they got either their first win or point not sure against Iceland a couple of years ago.

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    • Didn’t the beat Scotland a few year ago? or did Scotland get out of jail last min.

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    • Ciaran 16/10/12 #

      Under Brian Kerr the Faroes beat Lithuania 2-1 in 2009 in a World Cup qualifier. Last year they beat Estonia 2-0 in a Euro 2012 qualifier.

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    • If you can find it, a quick glance through their Wikipedia page will show you their history.

      E.g. they beat Estonia in the last campaign and only lost to them in the other leg after leading 1-0 in stoppage time. The same Estonia we hammered in the play-offs away, but looked like a pub reserve team against at home.

      They’ve also beaten the likes of Austria, and drawn twice in qualifiers against our mighty cousins Scotland and Northern Ireland.

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    • And Ireland subsequently drew at home to that Estonia side, albeit with the hard work done. Ireland must be too strong for these though. Surely.

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  • Doesn’t matter what the result is trap should go. The euros was an embarrassment any tournament

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  • eoghan 16/10/12 #

    Since they show no heart or commitment to the jersey I hope they get beat

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  • JakkiB 16/10/12 #

    AP you need to checkout a few league of Ireland teams and players, The talent IS there

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  • Ireland win 3-0 and Trap says we beat a very good team and turns the stubbornness up to 11

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  • We will start well as we did v Germany, then get nosebleeds from being so far up the pitch and we will sit back and hang onto a slender lead as we watch at home saying “ye know, faroe islands have gotten a lot better over the years”. Convincing ourselves that the its understandable for a gang of part-timers to put it up to professionals.

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    • G 16/10/12 #

      Good point. one thing the german match showed us is that if you are a better team, you score one, keep attacking, score two, three etc. i.e. keep going and don’t sit back. We have never done this under Trap even against terrible teams when we were obviously superior. It breeds a negative attitude and lack of confidence that can’t be thrown off and makes it impossible to get a good result against decent teams when we play them.

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  • n365 16/10/12 #

    Let me see now.. Oh .. eh…emm.let me see now..er..nope, dont give a sh1t.

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  • Faroe Islands to win 3-1.

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  • How many goals = a bitch slapping???
    Bottom line Ireland will lose

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  • Much to the disappointment of the (alleged) Irish football fans who see their football on TV and have seldom been at a live game (apart from the birthday visit to Manchester) Ireland will win. Not comfortably, not badly but adequately. These same “fans” will then fill every forum and phone in shouting that Ireland should have won by 10 and that Trap must be replaced by Keane now. Yawn,…………..

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    • Barry 16/10/12 #

      So does that mean you think Trap should stay? Are people who watch matches on tv not real fans?

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    • As to whether Trap can go or stay will be dictated more by financial considerations rather than anything else. If the Association had the funds I would say pay him off but if paying him means that domestic football from under 8′s up will be further starved of funding I would say let him see out the contract. Just as a point of interest the prize money that Sligo Rovers are owed as a result of winning the Airtricity League last weekend is worth less than a month of Traps salary or about 3.5 months of John Delaneys salary. Given that the FAI are now reliant on these clubs to produce the next generation of footballers from this country the future is not bright no matter who is manager.

      The question of whether a football fan is a fan if he does not attend matches is a moot point. Its a bit like saying I love theatre, I always watch plays on TV. Theres something that doesn’t quite ring true about it. In any town in Ireland on any given weekend there are loads of games to go to ranging from under age to senior club matches. No more than being a horse racing fan who was never at a meeting the feel for a game that you develop by being at a real match is totally different than what one feels by watching it only on TV. TV cannot give a full view of the game as naturally the cameras only follow the ball. Lots of football is played by the guys without the ball who cover space, make runs make themselves available etc. A few years ago I was at a Celtic game prior to which I had only ever seen Neil Lennon play on TV, and consequently never regarded him too highly. Seeing him play in a live game gave me a different perspective of just how hard he worked for the 90 minutes.

      I have no idea if you attend games on a regular basis or not, but if you don’t I can throughly recommend going to games at any level as a source of enetertainment. Personally, I attend somewhere between three and five games each weekend ranging from senior Internationals (when they are on) to underage games (that are always on) and the funny thing is the basic premise of the game is the same at every standard. Tickets for next months FAI cup final in the Aviva are only €10 each and its well worth a visit.

      As for tonight, I hope that Ireland win and I am certain that all those guys in the Irish team who I saw in the League of Ireland not so long ago will be doing everything they can to win no matter what the media say.

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    • I went to my first Ireland match in 1991 when I was 10, and I just stopped going after the last round of qualifiers because 80% of those 21 years were spent watching terrible football at terribly high prices, so I’ll now gladly be one of those tv viewers instead, I also used to go to League of Ireland, but the standard was so appalling I stopped going, and some of the juvenile ‘ultras’ ruined most occasions for everyone else, watched ID one too many times I suspect, would love to see them at an Eastern European league match, wouldn’t be a peep out of them. As for the next generation of Irish footballers coming from our domestic league, I wouldn’t hold your breath, most are developed in England and Scotland from schoolboy age. I also find ‘real’ football fans are usually the grumpy pr*cks whinging for the whole 90 minutes behind me at Landsdowne thinking they know everything about the game and thinking everyone wants to hear their opinion

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    • Barry 17/10/12 #

      I was in Poland at the 3 games and hav been to a few other internationals but to be honest i would be more of a GAA fan and find local and LOI soccer to hurt my eyes its so boring and poor in standard. However I would agree with your point about watching players off the ball etc is much different to tv which is a major reason Trap has to go coz he never goes to games. He must be the highest paid manager in history if u calculate his wage per hour worked.

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  • Doesn’t matter what the result is trap should go. The euros was an embarrassment any tournament

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  • We ever qualified for we went there and played to our strengths and gave a good account of ourselfs but in Poland none of the players looked like they new what they where doing.the football they are playing is terrible to watch the team is capable of playing better than that.there are available managers out there now. McCarthy coyle redknapp to name a few Delaney needs to get his head out of the clouds and act now

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  • This is the worst selection of players Ireland has probably ever had ,so maybe some slack should be given to trappatoni .All the armchair critics and 2nd class journalists just want to hide from the fact these shores do not produce any real talent.

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  • Ireland -1 10/11
    its like buying money

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  • Ireland will score twice in the first 10 min after the break.

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  • Bye Bye Trap,It’s been emotional!

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  • same as always. Rubbish…. but we’ve great fans, so that all that matters….

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  • they wouldnt drink soup. there useless. sack the whole team.

    bring up the youngfella’s.

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  • johnny 16/10/12 #

    draw for sure

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  • Win. Although all of us with accumulator bets won’t feel safe until 90 mins+

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  • football what’s that

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  • Well, one thing is for sure I will not sit through this match as I had done on Friday. The only way I’ll do this again is when Ireland is in a position to have a proper manager and proper players.

    Reply

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