Republic of Ireland General Discussion Thread 2026

Wonder is there any chance of Bosun Lawal starting tomorrow night. Is there any word on his fitness?

I'd imagine Vale will start.

little evidence of that bar Irish fan sentiment. The only time he played in midfield for club or country for a prolonged period was on loan at the bottom of league one.

Ireland under21s didn’t pick him there. Stoke dont pick him there.

We shall see.

stoke bought 2 midfielders (one being a 36 year old Steven nzonzi) on the summer deadline day while Irish fan accounts talked up his destiny as a midfielder. It’s hoping and wishing in my opinion and there’s nothing concrete to suggest he’ll become a midfielder. Nothing whatsoever but it could happen..just no evidence for expecting it to happen.

sure give it a go but it doesn’t suggest he’ll be much good or “our best prospect” if his club avoid playing him there while signing people in that position.

Not sure Murphy or roughan prefer to play CB. First I’ve heard of it but perhaps..

but taking the point you’re making while leaving the players out of it, personally I don’t think that’s likely to be a very successful tactic long term with middling footballers.

I think if you have a lad who you wish to play out of position and he is a very good player then you’ll be ok. But playing ok lads out of position is likely to end in tears.

Stoke fans rate Lawal as a midfielder but seen it necessary to play him in defence until Ashley Phillips returned to fitness.

NZonzi was a returning club legend and ex-teammate of Walters doing his badges, while Rigo was a younger punt. Lawal's versatility is costing him as he is getting plugged into wherever theres a hole as hes also played both full back positions

that’s the story Irish fan accounts tout or choose to believe alright. It doesn’t pass the smell test for me. Why buy two midfielders and have a midfielder plug a gap for an injured defender. If Lawal was rated as a midfielder just buy a defender to plug for Phillips.

The only thing is he seemed to play well in midfield this season on one occasion and never seemed to play there after.

Overall for now Lawal getting games in any position is a net positive. Whether Hes as good a 6 as Cullen id be disbelieving but hopefully he’s international standard.

The under 21 team he came off was decent but don’t think any of them have shown themselves to be international standard yet. I’d probably take Sinclair Armstrong over all of them as I think he may be able to do the Ogbene role.

It doesn’t really make sense but we’ll see. Hes feted as our big hope in no 6 while rarely playing there for anyone.

Listening to Dion Fanning and Joe Brolly there and one of the things that they agreed on was that penalties should be practiced. We had a couple of posters here and you’d hear the argument put out there coming out with nonsense like practising taking penalties is largely useless because you can’t replicate the pressurised conditions.

I think it’s important that penalty shootouts often play a big part in the outcome of key play off games like this and the players should be practising for the eventuality. We had Parrott and Idah two players well versed in taking penalties. Brady an experienced player who can strike the ball well. Other than that Kelleher looked like the only one remotely prepared. He saved one and almost got to another couple, especially the first one as I recall.

We had them behind the 8 ball and we blew it and I’m just talking about the penalty shootout here. The psychology isn’t right if people persist with this stuff like; “ah it doesn’t matter if you practice or not …because you can’t replicate the conditions…etc.”. Other posters here have given examples of athletes who take kicks at goal in rugby or GAA and how they use the right triggers so that they’re focused when their time comes to take their shot at goal.

That penalty shootout wasn’t good enough. We should not have had two guys in the first 5 stepping up to take a penalty shootout woefully under prepared mentality and physically in terms of practicing their penalty kicks.

Lessons need to be learned and the first step on that journey is stop with the denial that practising makes no difference because the pressurised conditions aren’t the same. As Joe Brolly put it; “that’s bollocks”.

Problem is the Govt pays for DPP, DEA, CAB, Sports Ireland, FAI and the Gardai, reckon Govt realises paying all these orgs to throw shyte back at them.

These orgs do not work together, Delaney hasn't even been asked to return overclaims on his expenses, he is laughing his arse off over in London and his lawyer plays all these orgs off each other.

Liam Scales back into the match day squad with Brady dropping out. Lawal and Alli also included.

To listen to the Free State podcast would be to voluntarily listen to Joe Brolly at which point I would be questioning my sanity.

If we won the shootout Captain Hindsight would just say it's all luck and nerves.

U17s playing at 3pm with a chance of qualifying for this summers Euros and/or the WC.

“Captain Hindsight”, give it a rest. This is about preparation not hindsight. way to miss the point.

Luck and nerves always a part but preparation and practice play a huge role in controlling your emotions when you face these high pressure situations. We got ahead in that penalty shootout because we had a few players that were well practiced and well prepared in taking penalties. We didn’t have enough of them and it was said that we didn’t practice them.

Im hoping that the management team and the players will learn from this. If we get to the Euros we will be very likely to face a penalty shootout and we should be practicing and preparing as many players as possible for that.