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so are Republic of Ireland worse than us?


bonny78

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Well, they have just beaten Georgia which we couldn't do, so no. We are the only team out of the 4 home nations and RoI to fail to win both opening games. We all select players from basically the same leagues so our players must be considerably worse than those available to the others.

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ROI been poor for about 8-9 years now....in that time they've played at Euro 2012 and 16 and made play offs for last WC!

Main difference is they're much harder to score against home and away and can grind results out. Look at last campaign, they were poor but had to go to Wales and win to make 2nd and ground out a 1-0 win, Scotland go to Slovenia in same situation and keep on leaving players unmarked at set pieces....

Looking at their line up last night:

Randolph- Decent championship keeper.

Coleman- Used to be their Robbo but not the same since he broke his leg. At least he has great experience to organise the back 4.

Shane Duffy- Good CB for Brighton.

Richard Keogh- Everytime I watch Derby he's awful.

Enda Stevens- Good wingback for Sheff United. Part of talented group including Coutts and Fleck....

Jeff hendrick- O.k Burnley CM.

Glen Whelan- Actually played o.k for us this season.

Hourihane- Great FK which he does for us on occasions. McGinn is far and away main man in Villa CM though.

Robbie Brady- Another Burnley player. Injured for most of the season.

McGoldrick- Sheff United. Think McBurnie has scored more than him this season.

James McClean- Mug player.

I would say their best player is Matt Doherty who has been brilliant for Wolves as a right wing back. He was only on the bench last night so guess they're having the same issues in that their best two players play in same positions.

So from that plenty of championship and lower end prem players like Scotland. Difference as I've said is they can go away and grind out results. Last time out they were in a much harder group than Scotland imo and they went to Austria, Serbia and Wales and took 5 points so no 3-0 type horror shows in Slovakia.

Think aswell because they have been to tournaments in recent memory there's the mentality that no matter how bad things get they'll still be in shake up to qualify whereas with Scotland it's complete opposite.

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33 minutes ago, Tartan Chris said:

ROI been poor for about 8-9 years now....in that time they've played at Euro 2012 and 16 and made play offs for last WC!

Main difference is they're much harder to score against home and away and can grind results out. Look at last campaign, they were poor but had to go to Wales and win to make 2nd and ground out a 1-0 win, Scotland go to Slovenia in same situation and keep on leaving players unmarked at set pieces....

Looking at their line up last night:

Randolph- Decent championship keeper.

Coleman- Used to be their Robbo but not the same since he broke his leg. At least he has great experience to organise the back 4.

Shane Duffy- Good CB for Brighton.

Richard Keogh- Everytime I watch Derby he's awful.

Enda Stevens- Good wingback for Sheff United. Part of talented group including Coutts and Fleck....

Jeff hendrick- O.k Burnley CM.

Glen Whelan- Actually played o.k for us this season.

Hourihane- Great FK which he does for us on occasions. McGinn is far and away main man in Villa CM though.

Robbie Brady- Another Burnley player. Injured for most of the season.

McGoldrick- Sheff United. Think McBurnie has scored more than him this season.

James McClean- Mug player.

I would say their best player is Matt Doherty who has been brilliant for Wolves as a right wing back. He was only on the bench last night so guess they're having the same issues in that their best two players play in same positions.

So from that plenty of championship and lower end prem players like Scotland. Difference as I've said is they can go away and grind out results. Last time out they were in a much harder group than Scotland imo and they went to Austria, Serbia and Wales and took 5 points so no 3-0 type horror shows in Slovakia.

Think aswell because they have been to tournaments in recent memory there's the mentality that no matter how bad things get they'll still be in shake up to qualify whereas with Scotland it's complete opposite.

Man for man we probably have slightly better players but they as you say are able to grind out results. Also half our best players seem to miss games or drop out for certain reasons. If we could get management right then we should be able to match their achievements. Same goes for ni and Iceland, overall inferior squad to us but able to grind out results. 

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Gibratlar was nearly a horror show, conditions  were nt great with an absolute gale blowing and a plastic pitch , though I seem to recall their keeper making zero saves in the first half and only for a surperb save by Randolf just before we scored we could of been 1-0 down

 

Anyway Georgia was a far better performance all round , anyone for tennis ...........

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1 hour ago, Newryrep said:

Gibratlar was nearly a horror show, conditions  were nt great with an absolute gale blowing and a plastic pitch , though I seem to recall their keeper making zero saves in the first half and only for a surperb save by Randolf just before we scored we could of been 1-0 down

 

Anyway Georgia was a far better performance all round , anyone for tennis ...........

Wait till you play them away like we did.      last twice we beat them by 1 goal at home but went on to lose away both times.

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2 hours ago, Newryrep said:

Gibratlar was nearly a horror show, conditions  were nt great with an absolute gale blowing and a plastic pitch , though I seem to recall their keeper making zero saves in the first half and only for a surperb save by Randolf just before we scored we could of been 1-0 down

 

Anyway Georgia was a far better performance all round , anyone for tennis ...........

Were any of your players excused from playing on the plastic?

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11 hours ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Generally I’ve always thought we were mentally weaker than Ireland. 

Over the last 30-40 years we've been mentally weaker both on the field and off it. There's a number of reasons for this...

As a country they're much more united. The RoI isn't divided over their sense of identity.

Their state broadcaster isn't fighting a rearguard action against Irish self-confidence and political aspiration.

The fans of Ireland's biggest clubs don't hold disdain for the national team or sing "if you hate the Green Army clap your hands" etc.

Playing for Ireland really is the pinnacle of an Irish player's career. The last Irish player to have his loyalty questioned because of dodgy call-offs was, funnily enough, a Scot (James McCarthy).

 

 

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While i'm at it, i should add my pet theory on why Ireland are much better at being a 'hard to beat' side than us.

It's because....wait for it.... they have better defenders!

But seriously, my theory on why they've produced better centre halfs than us is because of the GAA. All Irish footballers will have played GAA as kids (apart from the granny-rule imports maybe). It has remained a physical game (unlike fitba). It's also a game (both football and hurling) where the ball is constantly in the air. Reading a high ball is natural to Irish players.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Dave78 said:

While i'm at it, i should add my pet theory on why Ireland are much better at being a 'hard to beat' side than us.

It's because....wait for it.... they have better defenders!

But seriously, my theory on why they've produced better centre halfs than us is because of the GAA. All Irish footballers will have played GAA as kids (apart from the granny-rule imports maybe). It has remained a physical game (unlike fitba). It's also a game (both football and hurling) where the ball is constantly in the air. Reading a high ball is natural to Irish players.

 

 

Not sure better defenders, although our two now need way more experience.   But better at setting up defensively.

Our best campaigns over the barren years were the back end of 06 and the 08 campaign.  When Walter set us up quite defensively and using ferguson and faddys skill to create a little bit with the poacher miller at top.  But overall we mostly defended in those games and we had our best results.

All for Scotland playing attacking football, but maybe we should wait for this team to get older and for more players to be at our top two and abroad.  So for me maybe we should go back to being solid at back.  Chrippers back 3/5?

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1 hour ago, ScotlandWintheWorldCup said:

Not sure better defenders, although our two now need way more experience.   But better at setting up defensively.

Our best campaigns over the barren years were the back end of 06 and the 08 campaign.  When Walter set us up quite defensively and using ferguson and faddys skill to create a little bit with the poacher miller at top.  But overall we mostly defended in those games and we had our best results.

All for Scotland playing attacking football, but maybe we should wait for this team to get older and for more players to be at our top two and abroad.  So for me maybe we should go back to being solid at back.  Chrippers back 3/5?

What's this about a back three, would love to here this guy chrippers opinion on it. Don't think I have ever heard him talk about it.🙄

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30 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

What's this about a back three, would love to here this guy chrippers opinion on it. Don't think I have ever heard him talk about it.🙄

Well it's the difference between a 2-page thread and a 22-page one.  :rolleyes: 

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I assume if we play anybody ranked above us we would get humped. All the experience is out of the team...Mulgrew, Brown, Ritchie both Fletchers, Naismith, Miller, both keepers we are a young team of mainly guys with less than ten caps with a shit manager with coaches who have never coached at international level or even top flight. Scotland are a joke.

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On ‎3‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 10:30 PM, bonny78 said:

Wait till you play them away like we did.      last twice we beat them by 1 goal at home but went on to lose away both times.

Wait to you play them away ? we must have played them in the last 3 campaigns IIRC  1 win 1 lucky win 1 lucky draw  (actually probably 4 outa the last 5 as I had booked the Tbilisi one that got rearranged to Mainz) headed this time for the first time but a lot of guys giving it a miss this time as they have done Tbilisi to death

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On ‎3‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 2:31 PM, bigfathagiz said:

I assume if we play anybody ranked above us we would get humped.

Correct. 

Along with dozens of teams below us in the ranking, see the Kazakhstan result.

I honestly don't feel confident of us beating anyone at the moment.

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what is lost is lost...pals, hope, glory...  a good laff it's all gone ....naebody wants to travel anymore apart from some guys with other interests.....for me it was 100% Scotland.  it was never let's see Paris or let's see Amsterdam or let's cycle tae the hills ....it was 100% scotland.   This summer will get back tae that... whoever is manager.  Renfrewshire Crowd going tae Stornoway in June it's gonny be a riot.   Mon the Scots

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