Second Captains Part II

I can usually take or leave the Saturday rte interview they do but I thought Michael Sheen was good today.

This season in particular had been excellent

What did he say?

How is it deluded nonsense?

believing we were ever in the race for Grealish once he began to bang and England showed interest is deluded. Believing anyone who is good enough to play for England would ever play for Ireland when their only link to Ireland is a grandparent is deluded.

For Rice, ok deluded is probably not the right word. We could have probably cap trapped him if we called him up and played him versus Moldova.

but saying it was a major mistake to not do that is extreme use of 20/20 hindsight. Dion fanning and Ken, both of whom are the worst culprits for moaning about not cap trapping Rice. But there is more context to it then is ever discussed

• Ken never said at the time that we should be tying down Rice vs Moldova. Yet feels totally entitled to moan about it in retrospect
• john Egan was in Brentford’s team at the time but wasn’t in the squad. If they cap trapped rice it would be a slap in the face to Egan. If you’re putting it out there that players will get picked for reasons other than merits it’s a bad thing to put out there.
• moldova needed to be beaten, cap trapping offers the manager up as a hostage to fortune if the result does not go in your favour.
• i guess elite sport is cut throat but cap trapping players is not a great practice to be at. It’s wrong in my view. I don’t know how someone like Ken doesn’t see it’s a bit of a **** thing to do.

O’Neil should have locked in Ricsssssssshhhhhhhhh and Jack the lad forever and ever.

you didn’t address the full context I gave but in any case…

If you have objections to the use of the word “trapped” where the plan is to give a 18 year old a competitive cap they haven’t earned on merit, to shutdown the risk of the 18 year old defecting to their preferred country then I just don’t think we see these situations in the same way.

I dont see how any replacement of Kenny could be any worse results wise. I was a big supporter of Kenny and i think he was needed at the time but he's not the man to take us to the next stage. We've been repeatedly found wanting when a plan B is needed and i think it showed up Kenny's tactical naivity which was not to the standard for international management. He brought through a lot of players and we've more coming from the under 19s/21s so i think we'll be ok going foward.

The question is who do we get?

I think tactics started off very well in the first half of the last two games but once the opposition changed their approach Ireland were unable to adapt. Even taking France and Netherlands out of it, who are better sides than us, this has happened repeatedly under Kenny. We seem to have a decent plan A but theres nothing after it if it doesnt work.

Michael Sheens Father

Yes. So?

So he was there on merit 👍🏻