Optimum Sports : Irish Sport's Known Knowns

Friday, 14 February 2014

Irish Sport's Known Knowns

Last week Irish sport was pre-empting a rugby win over the Australian Wallabies at the AVIVA Stadium. Now a few days later the nation is lying in the wreckage of an emphatic defeat by the world number four team in the world. Now with only days to build a side to face the besr team in the world on Sunday - the All Blacks. The manner of the battering last Saturday by Ewan McKenzie's XV men somehow was baffling as Ireland entered the fray with a side dominated by the Lions downunder over the summer. Albeit neither Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Cian Healy, Jamie Heaslip or Rob Kearney played at the ANZ Stadium in Homebush in the Third test.

Only Tommy Bowe, Jonny Sexton and Sean O’Brien were present on the field that day in Sydney.

That Lions hangover may somehow have affected the mindset of the Irish players who seemed to show up with disregard for the Wallabies. Yet were unable to match them in any quarter of the field throughout the 80 minutes. Even despite the fact that fifteen Aussie players had been on a drinking binge a couple of nights previous to the game in downtown Dublin emporium.

That failure to respond, or show up on the day, must be part of the Irish sporting psyche and go along way to explaining how expectations are always set. Indeed we perform better as no-hopers with more frequency and so Sunday's fixture against New Zealand is the type of occasion where the national team could storm the barn. And win against the odds, all expectations. Or even logic. But then again that could be just be field of dreams stuff.

In Poznan on Tuesday the hyperbole about the transformation of Irish soccer fortunes after one friendly at the same AVIVA last Friday night reflects the same disease. At least for anyone who has watched Borussia Dortmund's Robert Lewandowski unravel defender after defender week-in and week-out in the Bundesliga. Or indeed the Champions League. Somehow the Irish media happy with the story that Poland are ranked nine places below the Republic of Ireland and the Official FIFA World Rankings. Too easily influenced perhaps by England's defeat of Poland at Wembley last month by two goals to nil. Albeit the decisive second goal from Steve Gerrard did not come until the 88th minute.

In his first match in charge Stephen Staunton's Republic of Ireland in Dublin made a perfect start with an impressive 3-0 victory over Sweden. A team that even veteran guru Giovanni Trapattoni found hard to unravel in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers. That result in 2005 followed by two home defeats in friendlies against Chile and Holland - the latter being a 0-4 thrashing with the Dutch in majestic from. Shattering all those memories of September 1st 2001 when one Roy Keane single-handedly strutted like a peacock in the 2002 World Cup qualifier against Holland.

Staunton's first competitive match was a 1-0 defeat to Germany in the 2008 Euro qualifiers followed display in Cyprus which saw the Irish team unravel in Nicosia 5-2. A moment from which neither he, his team nor the campaign recovered.

As always with Irish sport the unrealistic beliefs in what is is achievable impairs proper judgement. Which maybe our charm as a sporting nation. And no one more of aware of that than Joe Schmidt as he settles down to some home truths in Carton House this week ahead of the All Blacks fixture on Sunday. In doing so he might want to just hum that Christy Moore number -"Oh don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.” as Ireland finalise their preparations for the World Champions.

The same way that the astute Kiwi cannot make changes overnight to his rugby team let us apply the same algorithm to the new Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane combination in football. Especially as these are just friendlies for another year.

So far all that has changed are the bibs, balls, and the atmosphere. Whether that is enough changed remains to be seen in our world rankings in due course. As Donald Rumsfeld once so infamously said about known-knowns and unknowns. Let us be clear, Lewandowski is the only "known known" for Tuesday.

Indeed the striker is one of seven players from the Bundesliga that have made the shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2013 award which FC Bayern München dominate. But the one Borussia Dortmund player is just as worthy a candidate if last season Champions League is any measure given his ten goals. Second only to Real Madrid CF’s Cristiano Ronaldo. The 25-year-old also found the back of the net 24 times last season and only Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s Stefan Kiessling scored more often in the league. This season he has picked up where he left off having scored nine goals in 12 league matches so far in 2013/14.

In short, the Borussia Dortmund star will rightfully represent a major threat to Martin O'Neill's men as few of them even play Champions League. Never mind having countenanced the attacking speed and touch of the Polish centre forward.

The Polish coach is a replacement for Waldemar Fornalik who was sacked following his failure to take them to the World Cup finals in Brazil. So Adam Nawalka is only in his second game and like O’Neill remains convinced the players he has selected and the strategy he has employed will ultimately pay dividends.

"Naturally, we will approach the friendly against Ireland with a lot of faith. We want to regain the trust of our fans.”said Nawalka.

"Our preparations have been tailored to this very game. We wanted the players to recuperate physically after the game against Slovakia, and we have to eliminate the mistakes from the last game.

Poland's chances of doing just that could depend largely on Lewandowski, who scored in a 3-2 friendly victory over the Republic at Croke Park in November 2008. On Tuesday he will also be on familiar turf having made his name at Lech Poznan and scoring a double for his country at their stadium against the Ivory Coast in November 2010.

Lewandowski said: "I spent two wonderful years here with a lot of success and I have always wanted to come back here, so this is especially pleasurable for me.

"I hope the stadium will be as lucky for me as it was when I played with Lech Poznan, and also against the Ivory Coast, there was a friendly game some time ago here and I scored a number of goals."

The Republic of Ireland's luck at the same stadium is limited a 3-1 defeat to Croatia at EURO 2012. But the scene of some great parties in Poznan's main square.

Another known known.