Ireland's new dawn endures hard genesis

McCARTHY most go? Only kidding. Solace, of course, will be taken from the record books which show that Jack Charlton began his decade long reign with a defeat to Welsh opponents markedly inferior to the Russians. Nevertheless, the prophets of doom and gloom must have been having a fine time in the pubs last night.

This time the records will show a 2-0 defeat culminating in dismissal for Roy Keane, whose temper had previously been kept in check by a combination of Jack Charlton and the Irish set up.

At times the Russians carved through the new Irish system, on the night an inferior version of 3-5-2, and no one could dispute that they deserved their comfortable win. But it wasn't quite as bad as all that and, looking on the bright side, Mick McCarthy will have learnt plenty.

For starters, presumably, the Ireland will not in future wait until the opposition have gone 2-0 up before playing their best football. Perhaps the Russians took their foot off the pedal, but even so the improvement in the last half hour or so was discernible. There were always likely to be teething problems with the new Irish formation.

Central to its effectiveness was how Mark Kennedy used his roving commission from midfield. For much of the first hour the 19 year old looked short of confidence, understandably so given that be has had just one start in Liverpool's first team this season. Above all else, Kennedy is a confidence player.

Reacquainting himself with big time football, the confidence came back to his game in the latter stages. He varied his positional play, took on opponents and improved his distribution. The whole team benefited.

Also on the plus side, the other 19 year old, Shay Given, could not be faulted on his debut for either of the two Russian goals. Furthermore, his reflexes and shot stopping prevented an embarrassing defeat, most notably when denying Karpin and substitute Tetradze in late breakaways.

Jason McAteer also demonstrated the kind of fluidity McCarthy will be striving for when proving equally effective after being switched inside with Jeff Kenna. Kenna, who replaced the injured Andy Townsend, was far happier on the right than on his previous central midfield incarnations.

But perhaps most significant of all was the improvement when the Irish partly reverted to type in mixing route one with the short stuff, after perming the twin, towers of Niall Quinn and Tony Cascarino near the end. In one other respect nothing changed, for Steve Staunton's set pieces held the biggest threat.

Staunton also grew into his left sided defensive role. Paul McGrath's steadying hand from the middle also gave hope that there's plenty left in his legs, and more pertinently, his acute brain. Alan Kernaghan's distribution. was not always what McCarthy would have wanted, but it too improved.

Yet, all in all, the Russians, were a good deal further down the road to what McCarthy is aspiring to. They also lined up with three across the back, two wide players and three in central midfield supporting two front men.

It is tempting to say that the similarities ended there but that would be grossly unfair. Russia's greater fluidity stemmed as much from their Spartak Moscow based comfort with such a system as from their superior technique.

However, they did have certain other inherent advantages, most notably greater pace throughout the team and especially up front where Kolyvanov and Kiryakov interchanged or took up wide positions to run at Irish defenders.

Kiryakov was a menace, and Mostovoi was the pivotal number 10 of the midfield so beloved of continental teams and so difficult for Irish and British sides to contain. It was hard not to sit back and admire them.

A minute's silence for Jack Charlton's mother Cissy, who had died the day beforehand, may have contributed to an understandably subdued evening.

It was a strange night in ways. By the standards of most friendly internationals, there was a reasonably competitive edge to the contest, though not on the scale of the many heady nights of the last decade at Lansdowne.

The full house was unusually quiet, so much so that for most of the night you felt compelled to keep your voice down when talking to the person next you. Gone was the blood and thunder, the put them under pressure early ball bombardment of times past.

Instead it was almost as if the, more thoughtful football being attempted by Mick McCarthy's remodelled Ireland induced a more thoughtful reaction from the crowd. Patience all round then.

Seventeen minutes had elapsed before the crowd burst into song, in response to a threatening Andy Townsend header from a Mark Kennedy corner.

By then the trend had been set and the breakthrough, in the 34th minute, was no surprise. Andrei Kanchelskis was being shepherded away from goal by two defenders but he took them out of the game with a deft back heel to no one in particular. Mostovoi reacted quickest, skipping past Kernaghan to drift an unstoppable shot past Given.

The Russians were still holding the ball for longer stretches and providing a far greater array of running threats from deep. After 54 minutes Kolyvanov, who had switched to the left flank in accommodating the arrival of Radchenko, worked a short corner with Mostovoi and not for the first time the home defence was slow to react.

McCarthy will not have been pleased with that, and punishment was duly meted out when Kolyvanov took the return pass to thread a delightful curler inside Given's far post.

At last coming to terms with themselves and mixing the old with the new, the Irish worked up a head of steam. Like so many visiting continentals, even these super cool Russians were unnerved in the air. Quinn's deft glancing header from Staunton's in swinging corner struck the bar and Cascarino awkwardly stumbled over the ball when attempting to convert the far post tap in.

Six minutes later route one yielded a penalty, Onopko flicking a hand at Staunton's long diagonal ball to Cascarino near the edge of the area. Alas, Cherchessov saved with his feet as Staunton drove his penalty down the middle. From the resultant McAteer corner, Quinn bundled ball and goalkeeper over line but the goal was disallowed.

A more patient cross field buildup after 77 minutes saw Kernaghan advance to find Quinn with a delicate chip the striker turning his marker and shooting fractionally over.

That was a pity, but was nothing compared to Keane's sending off when he kicked out at Tetradze, and so became the first Republic player to be dismissed since Packie Bonner against Italy in the 1992 US Cup.

Keane had inherited the captain's arm band from Townsend at half time. Keane, who has twice been sent off for Manchester United in the last year, is no longer a boy and somehow he has to cop himself on. Hopefully, this may be the catalyst.