WELL. IN these days where we have not just to count the reasons to be cheerful but to check the authenticity of those reasons, Croke Park was a good place to be last night. Three World Cup points and a scare at bedtime. That’s entertainment enough to hold the bailiffs of the spirit at bay.
The few wealthy Irishmen left on the planet came to the northside all perma-tanned and lithe. We asked not that they throw a tithe of their fabulous earnings into the national begging bowl, merely that they entertain us and spare us the cruel and unusual punishment of Eamon Dunphy’s tears.
They toyed with us. The team’s decision to try a little physical comedy was well-intentioned but ill-judged, as the glum silence which greeted Georgia’s shocking goal after 48 seconds will have told them. World Cup matches at home to troubled eastern European nations are not occasions for fooling around.
The FAI, the sports body that the good times forgot, attempted to create a party mood by launching a “singing section” in the lower tier of the Canal End. Wolfe Tones records were played loudly enough to be heard back when they were relevant, but the rows of empty seats in the singing section refused to be cajoled.
In the end, two late goals from the Irish captain Robbie Keane prompted us to forgive and forget and to chorus that we are indeed all on the one road. Keane’s first was from a generously awarded penalty, the second a two-yard knifing job. In hard times, though, nobody cares about the quality. Hope lives though. Giovanni Trapattoni flashed his teeth and suggested that he is charmed. In this Tiger twilight that was enough.