American Tour Borders on a Bore

By Aidan Begley

In footballing terms, end-of-season international friendlies are pretty pointless. The season is over on a domestic level, most senior players (i.e. playing in the Premiership) are already on a beach getting nicely brown and fans can watch these games safe in the knowledge that in the long-term scale of things, they mean very little.
The Republic of Ireland are big fans of these pointless end-of-season tours, recall if you may The Unity Cup held in 2004 when the boys in green took on Jamaica and Nigeria at Charlton Athletic.
What’s that? You don’t recall it? That’s no surprise as it was awful and pointless and basically was created to try and cipher the hard-earned cash from loyal Irish, Jamaican and Nigerian fans in London and throughout the UK.
Well fast forward to May 2007 and Ireland are off on their footballing jollies and head on a flight to the good old US of A where the Irish rolled into Boston and New York to take on Ecuador and Bolivia in another end-of-season tournament against teams who just happen to have a big colony of fans in these areas, how handy. Call me cynical, but there you are.
Anyway, a hotch-potch Ireland team of fringe players and debutants headed off to America to end the international season on a high after the disastrous start to the year which saw defeats by Germany and Cyprus seriously dent their chances of qualifying for Euro 2008.
However, a draw against the Czech Republic followed by victories over the Faroe Islands (just), Wales and Slovakia have put the team just bubbling under the automatic qualifying positions, ready to pounce should the German’s or Czech’s slip-up.
So off to America and Ireland first off took on Ecuador in front of a colourful crowd in New York and Kevin Doyle’s diving header earned a makeshift Ireland team a creditable 1-1 draw.
Doyle also hit the post for the Republic, who handed international debuts to 11 players. Wigan's Kevin Kilbane captained the side, but the rest of the starting line-up had only 13 caps between them.
Up to 25 players had withdrawn or were unavailable for the tour of America, leaving Staunton with only nine capped players in a 21-man squad.
American-born student Joe Lapira, who had only met Staunton and the squad when they arrived in New York at the weekend, became the 11th debutant of the night and the first non-professional international since 1964 – this is quite frankly bizarre and one does wonder just what the point is of playing someone who is essentially playing for a university team in an international side other than to appease the Irish-American following. I’d be amazed if he ever runs out for Ireland ever again.
Also making a debut in the Ireland team was Birmingham City goalkeeper Colin Doyle, which capped a fantastic season for the Cork-born stopper by playing for his country for the first time, and as he is now a Premiership goalkeeper, Doyle has a great chance to secure himself the number two spot behind the ever-dependable Shay Given.
In game number two, Shane Long kept the Reading scoring spree rolling by getting his first goal for Ireland as they drew with Bolivia in scorching temperatures in Boston as Ireland ended their USA tour on a rather muted note, but both Steve Staunton and coach Kevin McDonald were able to draw a number of positives from the tour.
Staunton said: "These results were very, very pleasing. There were some excellent individual perform-ances and overall it was a good team performance. There were plenty of young lads out there who were absolutely delighted to be playing in that green shirt. This tour was important as I’m very keen on getting as many potential players used to the international set-up early in their careers so should they find themselves securing a regular spot in the side, then they have the experience of having played for their country.
“I thought that the two games gave us a very good test against two teams with a different style of play to that you would come up against in Europe. It was also in hot and humid conditions and from my own experience of playing here in the 1994 World Cup, it can be energy-sapping playing in these conditions.
“We had plenty of new guys and a few of the slightly more experienced lads turning out and it was refreshing to see the new generation of Ireland players coming through the ranks.
“We’ll have a break now and then we’ll start preparing for the Denmark friendly at the end of August before we head to Slovakia and the Czech Republic for our next series of qualifying games.”
Ireland coach Kevin McDonald gave Ireland’s two match US tour a firm thumbs-up too. McDonald was delighted with the fruits of the players and management’s labour that saw Stephen O’Halloran, Darren Potter, Shane Long, Wayne Henderson and Daryl Murphy all emerge with their reputations enhanced.
“I think the tour has been very good. Everyone who played has done themselves no harm. One or two have made bigger progress than certain other players while one or two of the younger players have come on and pleasantly surprised us about how they've done.
“Kevin Doyle was outstanding in the first game and came on in this second match. You'd like to think that one or two have now progressed to stand up and be big players. Daryl Murphy has done very well and he played well at the backend of the season to be fair.
“He played well for Sunderland whenever he played - not just at the backend. But obviously when they got promotion it raised his profile a little bit and his performances in these two games will have raised his profile a little higher again.
“Stephen Hunt did well the other day against Ecuador while Alan O'Brien did tremendous things with his running ability and some crossing against Bolivia. Whether they're the finished article … that's a matter of opinion.
“Stephen O'Halloran's done okay but I can't say too much as he is obviously at my football club. He played well against Ecudaor and he did well against Bolivia when he came on. He's made a lot of progress, done very well but has a lot of work to do still.
“He went to Wycombe on loan, did well and Martin O’Neill took him back. Then he was a squad member, had a squad number and trained with the first team squad every day.
He travelled to games without ever managing to get in the squad, playing or being on the bench. I'm sure the manager will have watched this tour and taken notice of what's gone on there against Ecuador and Bolivia.”
The players who won their first senior international caps on tour were:
Colin Doyle (Birmingham City); Joe O’Cearuill (Arsenal), Alan Bennett (Reading), Peter Murphy (Carlisle United), Stephen O’Halloran (Aston Villa), Joe Gamble (Cork City), Daryl Murphy (Sunderland), Darren Potter (Wolves), Stephen Gleeson (Wolves), Alex Bruce (Ipswich Town), Andy Keogh (Wolves), Joe Lapira (Notre Dame University).
The other members of the squad were: Kevin Kilbane (Wigan Athletic), Nick Colgan (Barnsley), Wayne Henderson (Preston North End), Stephen Kelly (Birmingham City), Stephen Hunt (Reading), Alan O’Brien (Newcastle United), Anthony Stokes (Sunderland), Shane Long (Reading), Kevin Doyle (Reading).