INTERVIEW WITH JACK CHARLTON: Emmet Malonefinds the former Republic of Ireland manager still not afraid to call it as he sees it

A LITTLE more than 18 years after Ireland lost a World Cup quarter-final to Italy, there might be a little less skin on his bones but Jack Charlton has barely changed in any other way as he relives the occasion, apportions blame and wonders what might have been on that summer night at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.

The former Republic of Ireland manager recently returned to the venue for a documentary, Italia 90 Revisited, and, he admitted yesterday the trip brought the memories flooding back. Certainly, as he replays the game over coffee and recalls how his side was undone by what he reckons was poor refereeing and a single mistake by John Aldridge, there is no shortage of detail with every kick of the ball recounted once more.

"To be fair," he says, "we weren't under any pressure from the Italians in the whole game. It was just that one time when they scored the goal and the rest of the time we were trying to get within striking distance of their goal and the referee kept blowing his whistle and giving us free kicks from a long way out."

All was well, he sighs, until somebody who should have known better went momentarily off message. "I'll still never forgive John Aldridge," he says with a hint of agitation before recalling how the striker, playing out wide on that occasion, lost the ball while turning inside when he was supposed to play it forward so that a team-mate could run at a defender.

The occasional fallibility of even his trusted servants crops up more than once. The 73-year-old has rock-solid faith in the plan he employed during his time in charge of the Irish team, even if many within the game have embraced a less direct approach, particularly in the wake of Spain's success in this summer's European Championships.

"It's just common sense in football that when you need a result you've got to get the ball into the 18-yard box," he maintains without the slightest hint of doubt. "You've just got to get the ball in there as often as you can, knowing that something will happen for you as long as you're working hard to as to make sure their lads aren't winning the ball comfortably."

Charlton still remembers with particular fondness the players who played his way most wholeheartedly. The rock on which he built his success, he insists, was the central defensive partnership of Mick McCarthy and Kevin Moran; the best team he ever fielded, he reckons, was the one that beat Scotland at Hamden with Paul McGrath at right back and Mark Lawrenson alongside Liam Brady in midfield.

The latter pair, he describes as "two of the best players in Europe", at that stage but that's not to say that the Englishman has any regrets now about his eventual treatment of the Dubliner.

Andy Townsend is another favourite. "When we lost him we lost games," he says. "I put Roy Keane in his place once when we went to play in Austria and I said to him 'Roy, just sit in midfield, don't go charging off, anchor the midfield in front of the back two'."

Instead, he recalls with consternation, "he ran all over the place. He was overlapping right and left, running through the middle. Then all of a sudden the ball goes bump, bump, bump, there's a volley and it's in the back of the net while he's still coming down the field.

"He was only a young lad at the time but I gave him a right bollocking at the end of the game."

He is rather unenthusiastic now about Roy the manager, suggesting that he has spent too much money at Sunderland before admitting: "To tell you the truth I've never followed Roy. Had it been somebody that I got along with or liked . . . but I've never forgiven him for what happened over in Japan."

Still, when asked if he was surprised that the Corkman chose to pursue a career in management, he is a little more conciliatory. "I think anyone who has worked with Alex (Ferguson) as a player," he says, "will come away thinking they'd like to stay in the game. And if Roy wants to stay in the game then okay, I wish him well."

He goes on to mention that another part of his problem with assessing the job being done by Keane is his inherent disinterest in the club that employs him, revealing that he declined countless invitations from a season ticket holding uncle to go to Roker Park and only set foot in the ground for the first time when he played there for Leeds.

He was and remains, he says with relish, a Newcastle man although the zest disappears from his voice when he starts to talk about the club's current plight.

"I'm like all of the Newcastle supporters," he says. "I don't know what the hell is going on there.

"We keep getting reports in the paper that they've appointed somebody (Joe Kinnear) now who is the new manager. If he wins a few games and gets them away from the bottom he'll probably get to be manager for the next few, the next year.

"I'd give it to Alan Shearer. I wish Alan would take the job. He's a bright lad, he knows what the game's about. I think he'd be a good coach and he'd be acceptable to the Newcastle supporter although if Kevin came back I think they'd be happy with that as well."

On the Ireland front, he is something of a "Trap" man and was somewhat charmed by the Italian when the pair bumped into each other recently at a Dublin hotel. "I met him out at the airport. He looked familiar to me and I went and had a talk with him. We just sat there and had a natter for a time over a cup of coffee. He was okay, you know and nice, happy smiling man. He knows all about football and remembers us from when we (Leeds) played against Juventus, different things like that."

Giovanni Trapattoni's status as an outsider coming in and getting stick for overlooking popular players as he pursues a particular system might just, of course, be something that Charlton can relate to.

"Everybody can criticise now," he says, "but he's trying to build a team, he's trying to build the system. Whatever way they've been trying to play, he's got to change all that and get them doing what he wants them to do. He's got to find players who can do what he wants them to do. He's the manager and if he can get a result without him (Andy Reid), and he did, then fine.

"I mean, you won 1-0. Never mind what whaddya call him (yes, him on the telly) says, they got a result.

"It was only 1-0 but they got a result. You've got to give the guy time to settle and get to know people because he's doing well. Italy are still one of the best teams in the world but the way things are going we could finish second in the group and qualify. Then Ireland could have another adventure."