IN a trade in which the tributes are transient and failure frequently assessed in the inability to break a sequence of six bad performances, it ought not have been that much of a shock.

Yet the dropping of Paul McGrath yesterday will have jarred the world of Irish football as no other team selection of modern years. It is possible, as Mick McCarthy indicated, that the Republic of Ireland's most capped player will return to eke still more honours out of a remarkable career.

Undeniably, however, his star has now dimmed and a man who embodied the spirit which moved a nation during the Jack Charlton era, is almost at the end of the golden years.

Throughout its history, the game in this country, has always produced talented players. From Jackie Carey to John Giles to Liam Brady, they demanded the respect of their peers worldwide, at times when Ireland struggled to find a place among the elite of Europe.

The measure of McGrath's rounded skills is that he fits comfortably into that august company, a superb athlete who on fair days and foul, could always be numbered among those capable of performing to pedigree. True, others were more creative and his 11 years in the national team, pale in comparison with the 19 which Giles logged in a marvellously protracted career which took him through three decades. Yet, for many of us, McGrath was the most effective Irish international of them all. As a defender, he could alternate between a central and flank role with the practised ease of a man who read the direction of the threat instinctively.

And when Jack Charlton was forced to improvise after losing Mark Lawrenson, the anchor man of his midfield formation in the run-up to the 1988 European championship finals in Germany, he found the perfect replacement in the then Manchester United player.

Only in the last two years when the edge began to leave his speed, did he look less than the complete central defender. But when the sap was still rising and he could still find the extra yard of pace in critical situations, his strength, skill and passing ability put him apart from the vast majority of his contemporaries.

Those were the qualities which earned him the admiration of the football world. For the wider public, the more inspirational element by far, was his triumph over circumstances which for others, might have been insurmountable.

Brought to Dublin from London at the age of two months, he spent the first 16 years of his life in orphanages and before he reached 21, he had suffered two breakdowns. Later, he would experience serious problems with alcohol and on two occasions, went AWOL from the Irish team. In each instance, Jack Charlton's trust in rehabilitating him was repaid over and over again with a series of world class performances.

Alex Ferguson was less tolerant and his decision to transfer the Irishman to Aston Villa for a giveaway price of £450,000 in 1989, had less to do with his faith in McGrath as a player than a perceived need to break up a cartel at Manchester United.

Throughout it all, McGrath managed to disguise the weaknesses in his knees which had been operated on no fewer than nine times. For much of the last eight years, he trained only through games and still main aged to retain his rating as one of the best central defenders in the world.

With luck, he might well have become the first player from the Republic of Ireland to win 100 caps, a forlorn prospect now but one which was real enough on a sunny day in New Jersey in June 1994 when he towered above friend and foe alike in Ireland's World Cup win over Italy.

"In my time, I have been privileged to work with some of the greatest people in football," said Charlton, "But none more remarkable than Paul McGrath."

Many of those who heard of the fall of an icon yesterday, would say hear-hear to that!