JONATHAN SEALS THE EURO DEAL
![Jon points the way forward to France!]()
Jon points the way forward to France!
He continues to be one of the most under-rated players in the English Premiership but now Jonathan Walters has helped give himself the chance to show exactly what’s he about when the European Championships come around next summer.
His brace of goals on Monday night confirmed Martin O’Neill’s men will be there after it appeared half-way through the qualifying campaign that we could well be sitting at home watching only one Irish team perform on the big stage in France.
Throughout that campaign, he has been the inspiration behind Ireland’s qualification – chasing lost causes and never giving up when other heads might have dropped, just as he does for his club side, Stoke City.
Even in that fog laden second half in Zenica last Friday night we noted his absence in the green shirt, that spark that lit up this Irish team right from the kick-off in the return leg at the Aviva.
Walters took his two goals with expert efficiency, sending his former Stoke team-mate Asmir Begovic the wrong way with his spot-kick, and then volleying neatly into the far corner for the second decisive score.
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Walshy
by Paddy Walsh
That penalty? Sure it was harshly awarded in the extreme but I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it finally made up for Thierry Henry’s infamous handball as some newspaper reports suggested – given that Ireland didn’t cheat to have it given, referee Bjorn Kuipers somehow pointing to the spot when it was clear there had been no deliberate attempt to use the hand by the Bosnian defender.
The visitors could argue that this was an obvious turning point in the tie but they would have had no argument for believing they should have finished the match with eleven men on the field of play after Emir Spahic was hugely fortunate to be still on it after a series of rash, to say the least, challenges.
But what a night and what an atmosphere. We even got a jest from Roy Keane in a post match interview:”As long as we’re not in Saipan, we’ll be alright,” he responded to a question on Ireland’s preparations for France 2016. Even Mick McCarthy would have got a belly laugh out of that one.
“A NEW EIRE BEGINS”, screamed a banner amongst the home supporters.
It surely does and now we can look forward to December 12th and the draw for the group stages of the tournament.
We’re ranked fourth seed along with Northern Ireland and Wales, and I’m as sure as Christmas that we’ll be potted in alongside the old enemy from across the water. Remember where you read it first and then remember Ray Houghton.
WHEN TERROR COMES KNOCKING ON FOOTBALL’S DOOR
It was the weekend when football, on most occasions divided into respective fan bases and rivalry, came together.
As Paris pained and terror reigned, and the suicide bombers and shooters struck, - one of them having been refused entry to the Stade de France earlier - the players of France and Germany, unaware of the events unfolding horrifically in other parts of the city and of the nature of the explosions outside the ground, played on to the finish.
For those of us watching the R.T.E. panel reflecting on Friday night’s first leg play-off in Bosnia, our first idea of what had occurred came when Darragh Maloney intervened to announce the murderous events in the City of Lights. It appeared bad then but it was only to get worse as we switched to the news channels for more information.
From then on Paris and the world, not for the first time, realised that Bill Shankly’s famous quote of football not being a matter of life and death but much more important than that, was just a piece of garbled nonsense.
So football, and sport, took a back seat and the terrorists emerged from the shadows to take a front one and send 129 human beings to early graves and hundreds more to hospital and the trauma wards. And another bloody statistic that has somehow been overlooked in all the clouds of condemnation – 44 innocents butchered in Beirut last week by suicide bombers. And so it goes on.
Football did carry on with the Republic facing Bosnia & Herzegovina in the second leg of that play-off tie at the Aviva – the Irish fans drowning out a few audible shouts from the Bosnian supporters during the moment’s silence - and France coming to Wembley last night for an emotional match that many of us would have thought should have been postponed. Like the scheduled friendly matches involving Germany/Holland and Belgium/Spain that were called off, the former just two hours before kick-off after a suspect object was located in the stadium in Hannover.
R.T.E.’s Tony O’Donoghue covered last Friday’s match in Bosnia for the station and then flew to Paris to meet his wife for an anniversary weekend which had centred on attending the U2 concert – subsequently cancelled - in the French capital and there have been countless other snapshots of associations with the city from this country.
A message on the Finn Harps website was posted thus: “Our thoughts and support are with our friend, Wilfried, and everyone in Paris at this tragic time,” a reference to the Harps striker Tagbo who had travelled back to his home city after the celebrations of the previous week.
Football again forced, and rightly so, to sit back and reflect on the horrors that life, and our fellow beings, can bring.
BRENDAN GOES THE EXTRA MILE IN SLAMMING THE CHEATS
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Brendan Boyce
In a week when our own Brendan Boyce spoke out strongly against the drug cheats in his sport, specifically Russian athletes, we could in some cynical alternative world promote a scenario where every competing nation is allowed to delve into chemical assistance and may the best (or worst) team win.
As it stands, it’s far from a level track and field playing surface and we’re a long way from the finishing line before we can place our full and unyielding trust in athletics again. If ever.
The sport of professional cycling is still suffering from the attempts of those participants to win at all costs even if that cost was going to cast a long and dubious cloud over the Tour de France and other events. How sportspeople can stand on podiums and smile their way through accepting medals and plaudits knowing they have cheated to get there is something that can only be asked of the likes of Lance Armstrong and the many others who have stooped to the darkest depths.
The WADA report into Russian athletics prompted some hard-hitting comments from the clean end of the sport, not least Milford’s Olympian race-walker.
“We knew without the evidence. Now the evidence is there for all to see,” Boyce declared at the weekend.
His own discipline is not without tarnish and he lauded the achievements of his international colleague, Rob Heffernan, in winning gold at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. “Given everything we know about what Russia were doing, and the state-assisted doping programme, what Rob did in the 2013 world championships, should go down as the greatest ever performance by an Irish athlete.
“He went into the lions den in Russia and beat them all while they were doping – it was an incredible performance and it showed me that it is possible to win while you are a clean athlete,” the Donegalman told the ‘Irish Mail on Sunday.’
Boyce hasn’t reached the stage, he said, where he was asking questions of himself if it was worth his while to compete against the drug cheats. We can be grateful for the fact that he is determined to carry on even if, as he points out, funding can be affected – “the trickle-down effect that people don’t see” – when ranking is affected due to finishing down the field as a result of the actions of those, such as the Russians, who have decided that other methods, other than hard training and commitment, are required to help them do the business.
Boyce noted a distinct change of atmosphere at this year’s world championships because of the absence of the Russians and the question marks. He hopes for the same relaxed feeling in Rio at next year’s Olympic Games.
“For the sport to have any credibility, people need to believe what they see at the Olympics. If they don’t, the sport is going to die,” he warns.
In an individual context, there will always be athletes willing to take the chemicals and the risk, he suggests, but Boyce maintains the state-sponsored programmes must be eradicated.
Few would disagree with that but surely it’s in the interests of all – most notably the credibility that he speaks of – to take a hard line against anyone and everyone who goes down the illegal walkway and not just national federations. Only then can we truly bring athletics back from the brink.
FLOODGATES
![The road at Conwal on the outskirts of Letterkenny close to the Aura Centre which was completely flooded this week. Pic by JG Pictures.]()
The road at Conwal on the outskirts of Letterkenny close to the Aura Centre which was completely flooded this week. Pic by JG Pictures.
Went along to the O’Donnell Park in Letterkenny for the primary school cross-country event last Friday morning involving schools from the locality.
Great enthusiasm from the young ones, boys and girls, and well done to all of them for completing the course and to those who secured medals.
Had it been forty-eight hours later, however, they would have been taking part in a swimathon at the venue.
Hard to believe the flooding that put the training fields under a couple of feet of water on Sunday and likewise the nearby athletic track at the Aura Leisure Complex. And a few goal kicks away, Leckview Park didn’t escape the watering ravages.
Truly, sport, the outdoor variety at any rate, is always at the mercy of the elements. Even those who compete at the higher level – I mean, what about that fog that drifted in over the stadium in Zenica and went close to causing the abandoning of the game while prompting the quote of the day from R.T.E. pundit, Jim Beglin, just after Robbie Brady opened the scoring. “Nobody saw that coming.”
Brilliant.
CAPTAIN COLEMAN
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Seamus Coleman, future captain of Ireland? True the prediction came from a fellow Donegalman on the morning after the night before but it’s certainly not something to be scoffed at. Indeed, we shouldn’t be at all surprised if the Killybegs native some day – and not too far away either – leads out the Republic of Ireland team on a regular basis.
On R.T.E. radio yesterday morning, Packie Bonner described Coleman’s performance against Bosnia as “magnificent” and none of us could argue with that. And very few either with the former Irish goalkeeper’s assertion that the Everton full-back might – will – feature as skipper of the Republic.
As stated in this neck of the woods last week, Coleman is a serious young man when it comes to his footballing career and that steely focus comes through in each and every performance and indeed in every interview he conducts.
He was again outstanding on Monday night and well merited the plaudits that came his way and those tributes from one of his international predecessors.
Probably a bit too soon to be considering him in the captain’s role for France 2016 but look out for him calling the toss in one of the subsequent campaigns and/or tournaments.
Bonner, meanwhile, was quick to heap the praise on the Irish team after coming through the trickiest of qualifying groups including taking four points off the Germans.
And he believes that the old Lansdowne Road atmosphere is now beginning to make itself heard at the Aviva Stadium and consequently pushing the team on to greater things.
Meanwhile, Coleman, who missed out on the squad for Euro 2012 – and may have been fortunate given the Republic’s dismal displays in that tournament – spoke of his joy at qualification for France 2016. “Hopefully, I will be in the 23 when we go there.”
Barring injury, I think we can safely say there’s more than hope that he will be included.
After all this is the future Republic of Ireland captain we’re talking about.
PADDY TO RULE!
As anyone who may have delved into this column previously will know, I’m not a great fan of those sporting occasions involving the same two teams competing against each other every whatever - i.e. the Ryder Cup, the Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race, and the Ashes (though to be fair I do enjoy a bit of a smile when the Aussies claim the trophy).
Consequently, the International Rules Series can leave me cold and often does and probably will again when Ireland take on Australia at Croke Park on Saturday.
But no doubt, I’ll still end up watching it and enjoying a bit of a smile when Paddy McBrearty gets his chance from the stand-by selection and scores the decisive points and Ireland ultimately claim the trophy.
THE WORK HAS BEGUN
Now that the blue dust has settled following Friday night week’s heroics in Ballybofey, Finn Harps have already begun looking ahead to life in the Premier League.
It means key additions to the current squad if they are to survive in the top flight, fund-raising to help in this respect and to bring Finn Park up to the required standard for the necessary licence. It’s a certainty that work on the new ground in Stranorlar won’t be completed in time for the 2016 season and, some of us with cynical bones in our bodies might suggest, may not even be ready for the 2017 campaign. But at least some progress has been made and for that we can thank the current management board.
There are now much better structures in place, both in terms of that management set-up and as far as the playing side is concerned, to cope with the demands of the Premier Division and I for one – hopefully more than one – am confident Finn Park will see the changes needed to at least go close to matching some of the better facilities around. We can, of course, all play a part there and indeed in helping to raise the cash that will be needed to put everything in place.
Meanwhile, much reaction on the social media sites to that stirring finale to the season including a couple of gems on the club’s Facebook and Twitter outlet.
This one from Eamon McGee, presumably the one better known for his exploits in the green and gold: “Just so Harps know, I’m available to partner Banda up front next season.”
And this message of good will from Cobh Ramblers F.C.: “Congratulations to Finn Harps on their promotion. The 800 km round trip to Ballybofey will be truly missed.”
And likewise from this end though there is still that little matter of the trek to Cork City.
HART FELT
Misquote of the international week from England’s Joe Hart after the 2-0 friendly defeat in Spain: “We ended up playing on a Third Division pitch. It wasn’t good enough,” he told I.T.V. before adding: “I’m not making excuses….”.
Yes, Joe, though we can quite understand how you would be disappointed when after coming through one of the easiest qualifying groups on record, your lot finally came up against quality opposition who were, in case you’ve forgotten, also playing on that “Third Division pitch”.
MEMO TO SCOTLAND:
If ye wouldn’t mind looking after your respective neighbours’ home pads next summer as we’ll all be away for a few weeks……
![PIC CAPTION: Recent prizewinners at Letterkenny Golf Club pictured with Captain Gerard Duffy [centre] include Michael Shiels and Liam Shovlin [seated]. Standing, l-r; Ciaran Williamson, Michael Nelis, Bobby Shiels, Eamon Mc Glinchey, Darragh Heaney and Mark Doherty.](http://www.donegaldaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PRESENTATION-NIGHT-11th-NOV.-1024x668.jpg)
