Sideline Cut: Ireland has to conquer twice this afternoon. Beating Wales is an absolute necessity. But they also have to win the hearts of an easily bored nation that has shown more interest in the fortunes of the national cricket team for the past week than in the original Boys in Green.
The novel images beamed back from Jamaica, showing ginger, sun-frazzled boys in emerald, bowling googlies and shouting, 'Howzat' while the fun-loving and loveable 'Blarney Army' woof it up in the stands has been the feel good sports story of the week in this country. The cricket boys look dashing and hip and all the rest of it. It is unfortunate that Ireland's win over Pakistan has been over-shadowed by persistent rumours of match-fixing followed by the death and possible murder of the poor Pakistani cricket coach, Bob Woolmer. But, hey, why let death and cheating spoil the good vibe? The fact is that the pictures from Jamaica look sensational and fresh and glamorous and therefore have immediate appeal in this country of new sophisticates.
The Ireland football team, in contrast, are like a relic from the past, a throwback to that embarrassing time when there was no money, no style and no pretensions. It has been a long time since this country 'needed' the national football team as its voice on the grand stage. It has been a long time since the FAI held in its power a football team capable of altering the mood of the country. Now, we look back at the images of that strange, magical decade when Ireland went soccer-daft with a mixture of fond amusement and slight distaste. Remember the madcap novelty pop singles, the Irish boys wearing unholy shiny green tracksuits as they posed with Pope John Paul, Ronnie Whelan's mad, thrilling volley against the Russians and all that? And tens of thousands - a quarter of a million people - honouring the 1990 team by turning out to greet them on their return from Italy. An Irish crowd with shocking hair and cheap clothes, mad for a bit of excitement.
Innocents. If the FAI made a mistake back then, it was that they believed that Irish people actually cared about soccer that much. Whatever those warm, manic times were about, it wasn't just soccer.
Robbie Keane and Damien Duff have been the most lauded and gifted heirs to those peculiar years when soccer stormed the land. Today, they find themselves as the senior men, the putative stars on an Irish team that resides somewhere between derision and indifference in the national consciousness. Irish soccer could hardly be less fashionable. Just a month ago, the build-up to national rugby team's opening match in Croke Park was treated as a major socio-political event, our own version of the downing of The Berlin Wall. There was plenty of solemn talk about Bloody Sunday and the symbolism of the day and in the subsequent confusion, the victory over England was broadly greeted as some kind of correction, as the pathway to a new understanding between Ireland and Blighty. England listened and they were humbled and we loved that.
This week, Steve Staunton and Kevin Kilbane and the boys have somewhat mutedly referred to the "historic" element of this afternoon's soccer match on the Jones Road. But nobody cares. These are fast times. All that history malarkey belonged to the rugby boys. Croke Park was either whored or liberated then, depending on your perspective. Now it does not matter whether Fossett's Circus or the Irish soccer team or La Folies Bergere are appearing at the old Gaelic citadel. It is just a big, modern sports venue for hire.
But the clear message has been that if the Irish soccer team dare to play on the Croke Park grass, they better be prepared to win. Or else! No losers in this country. The dread thought of booing filling the grey skies over Dorset Street this afternoon has been the subject of much gleeful speculation. Staunton has been lampooned, treated as a national joke while Bobby Robson, a man with six decades of football experience, has been spoken of and written of as though he were a fond uncle in the early stages of Alzheimer's. The thinly veiled condescension has been nasty and cheap.
It is plain to see that this campaign has not gone well for Staunton and with each passing game, he finds himself increasingly isolated. His old club and international team-mates have shaken their heads in dismay and suggested, in their herd-like way, that Stan is not "up to it" at this level. Staunton's slow, deliberate, easily parodied speaking style was shown up painfully this week when Roy Keane rolled into the town on a charity engagement.
Keane gave a press conference in which he had the very press people who were at his throat four years ago falling at his feet as he gave answers in his unique brand of sharp wit, lacerating truths and comical one-liners. He had everyone in the palm of his hand, chuckling as if they were at a Billy Connolly show. Whatever will he say next? Keane couldn't help that his engagement fell on a football week that won't make but could well break Staunton's beleaguered career. But it probably didn't bother him very much either. His observations that it was a managerial imperative to alter a struggling team were hardly helpful to Staunton and the breezy reference to Shay Given, Keane, Duff will have stung his old team-mates. The poignant thing about the Keane press conference was that it highlighted once again that Ireland and the FAI managed to blow it with the most compelling and gigantic sports figure this country has ever produced. What a shame.
Staunton is under ferocious pressure now. When the FAI made their leftfield Staunton/Robson appointment the feeling in this column was that while it was eccentric, at least it was original. Selecting the Irish team is hardly rocket science: after that, it is simply a matter of getting them organised and motivated and hoping to God that we can score a goal through an Ian Harte free or a rebound off Gary Doherty's arse or that Kevin Doyle would blossom. How hard could it all be? But Robson's history of illness caught up with him and alone, Staunton was over emotional in Germany and he looked downright lost in Cyprus. Hoots of derision followed his selection of the fringe talents of Caleb Folan for this squad while the decision to omit David Connolly from the squad has led to some raised eyebrows, not least from his Sunderland boss Roy Keane. It is just another stick to beat Stan with. Does anyone seriously think that Connolly could transform the fortunes of this Ireland team? Maybe Staunton reckons that Connolly belongs to Ireland past: it was only under extreme pressure that he brought veteran Lee Carsley back in. If that is his view, he is entitled to it. One of his problems has been a distinct failure to explain his thinking, leaving himself open for easy jibes and jokes.
Not since the drear years of the early to mid 1980s has the garrison game come in for such trenchant criticism. It could well be that Staunton, so dourly competent and reliable as a defender, simply does not have the temperament or the vision for international management. That would be a pity for the man but it is hardly a crime.
And none of it changes the fact that there has been something lowlife and self-loathing in so much of the treatment of Staunton, from the soccer pressmen to the phone-in merchants, an almost gleeful willingness to humiliate him, to mock the unfashionable accent and to put him in his place for daring to accept the post in the first place. In terms of Irish sport, today's game is hugely important and sitting under the Hogan Stand, the Premiership kids will know that they are playing for respect as much as two points. Even if they rally, it seems as if the day of the Irish soccer team as a mass opiate has passed. They say all the good stuff is in Jamaica.
So who's for cricket?
