Ireland 2 -1 Georgia – The Luck Of The Irish…

The term ‘by the skin of their teeth’ comes to mind before anything else.

Tonight’s match against Georgia was supposed to be a chance for the Irish national team to show that they’re real candidates for automatic qualification to South Africa 2010, as well as giving a wee pick me up to the people of our country who, unlike our international superstars, are going through one hell of a recession.

However, it didn’t exactly work out like that. I myself was full of optimism as I sat watching the national anthems prior to kick-off. I was imagining a 4-0 or 5-0 win, I really was. But then it happened. Georgia’s Lobjanidze lobbed a floating ball into the Ireland box. It should have been easily dealt with by Stoke City’s Stephen Kelly but he, for some reason, let the ball bounce by him allowing Iashvili to tap home the opener.

You’d imagine after this that we’d pick things up, put pressure on the Georgians and that eventually talent would tell. Not quite though. We struggled for the rest of the first half, the only bright spot being Keith Andrews’ goal, which was wrongly disallowed.

The second half started in much the same vain as the first ended. Slow, arduous football that was as pleasing on the eye as seeing your grandmother flirt with your best mate. Yes, that bad. But eventually things picked up. Georgia lost their discipline, giving away free kicks like they were attempting to meet a quota. Little came of the free kicks, or of Ireland’s possession. The turning point in this game was a very strange and very possibly wrong decision made by referee Jouni Hyytia in the 73rd minute. Although Robbie Keane appeared to be flagged offside by the linesman, the ref awarded a penalty for handball. The Spurs captain stepped up and netted his 36th international goal. Looking at replays, there was little if any evidence of handball. But this is the World Cup we’re talking about, and since when have correct decisions meant squat in this tournament.

From then on in Ireland completely dominated, so it was little surprise that we took the lead only minutes later. In the 79th minute Aiden McGeady sent in a corner and Keane managed to escape the marking of David Kvirhvelia to shoulder home the winner. I say shoulder because, although it looked like a header, it did in fact go in off the top of his rightshoulder. But they all count.

RTE awarded the Man Of The Match award to Celtic’s Aiden McGeady. He had a good game, showing great endeavour with his runs and showing the only glimpses of creativity in the first half. For me though, Kevin Doyle of Reading was the best player on the pitch. He ran everywhere, winning free kicks regularly after surprising defenders by latching on to over-hit passes that he had no right to get, thus drawing a frustrated foul from the defenders. He was also, as ever, brilliant in the air. He is a brilliant target man and he showed it tonight by being the first to almost every high ball knocked up to him. He nearly scored a header too, only to denied by a save of pure class by Georgia’s stopper Lomaia.

So overall, a fairly dodgy performance. But a win is a win is a win. It’s all three points in the end and we are once again level on points with the Azzurri. One thing Trap has to think hard about though is his centre-midfield pairing. Andrews was okay tonight but despite some promising performances recently Whelan looked well out of his depth. He would display some nice control, only to immediately waste a simple two yard pass. I think Trap needs to convince Man City’s Stephen Ireland to return sooner rather than later. We won tonight, but the goals came from a penalty and a corner. And in truth, despite our dominance and possession, we never showed a real creative spark. Just something for Trap to mull over.