Least Irish can do is show some passion

On Soccer: To a man who briefly thought somebody was about to shoot him when he wandered outside to make a phone call prior to the Dutch match a couple of months back, the sight of 16 young protesters waving "Stan out" placards in the same team hotel car park must have seemed just a little tame.

Still, it's hard to imagine Steve Staunton hasn't been grievously hurt by the media coverage of and public reaction to his side's 5-2 loss in Cyprus at the weekend.

Nobody in the camp could argue that they were not due some stick for the way the team played in Nicosia but there must some anger over the way the manager and the players have been berated and belittled in some quarters.

Staunton himself has little option but to take a good deal of the blame for what happened at the weekend as he did when the Irish were overrun by the Dutch in Dublin. Clearly, though, some of the most recent criticism has been over the top and so, while he didn't go far beyond the bare minimum of what was required in the circumstances, it should be acknowledged that Staunton handled his pitch-side press conference yesterday with a good deal of dignity.

That, of course, is not going to be enough to get him through the present crisis. Staunton's position may not yet be lost but he could be forgiven for not resting easier last night on the basis that FAI president David Blood has given him a public vote of confidence.

What the beleaguered former Liverpool star needs now is the most unlikely performance produced by any Irish side in recent times. Ideally, he could do with the country's first competitive win over a well ranked football nation since the defeat of the Netherlands in September 2001 (since then we have managed to beat only Iran, Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Albania, Cyprus and the Faroe Islands in games that matter), but the very least his team must play with the sort of passion he was hired to instil in them and with the sort of composure that might imply there is something of substance being said to them on the training ground before the cameras arrive each day.

If his side suffer another humiliation then back to back games against San Marino should (though we will not make the mistake of assuming anything anymore) provide some respite before the more serious, but presumably surmountable challenge, of a home games against Wales in March.

Get beyond that with 10 or 12 points in the bag, most of his senior players available again and the addition of a new advisor to replace Bobby Robson (who may well be gone on the grounds of medical advice by Thursday evening) and Staunton would stand at least a reasonable chance of making it through the end of the campaign after which he could start all over again.

Few people love to be loved more than the ones that inhabit Merrion Square, but there remains some sense that Staunton's employers are willing to go on extending rope to him. As long as they do that it is up to the manager to stop hanging himself.

Sadly, the Cyprus game looked a lot more winnable than the Czech one does and though much stranger things have happened in football there is now no logical reason to suspect that the Irish can prevail tomorrow night.

In their opening game of the recent World Cup, against the United States, Karol Bruckner's side looked outstanding and while they subsequently failed even to make the second round there were strong rumours afterwards that a little too much relaxation off-duty had been their downfall.

Judging by their three wins so far in the new campaign their veteran coach appears to have addressed any problems in that department. In short, if they play the way they can then Staunton's troubles are about to worsen.

Whether he would stick it out if the team take another hiding would be interesting to see but the FAI might well be relieved in those sort of circumstances to see him walk. On a practical level it would give a new man a little time and a couple of winnable games to find his feet. It might just be worth mentioning, though, that it would spare John Delaney from ongoing criticism regarding his rather central role in the original appointment.

Delaney, of course, is now being held to account for his widely publicised promise that Brian Kerr would be replaced with a "world class manager". Staunton may yet become one of those but there is already ample evidence to establish that the association's recruitment process didn't quite achieve its stated target.

Calls for the organisation's chief executive to go over Staunton's poor performance, however, have hardly been backed up with a compelling case so far. The FAI have a great many flaws and have, despite all the claims to the contrary, become much less publicly accountable in recent years while Delaney might be viewed as very fortunate to have risen to the top job given some of the controversies along the way there, but the association has undoubtedly made major strides forward in a whole range of areas.

If that slide really can't be halted and Staunton does go then Delaney will undoubtedly be damaged and he should surely not be centrally involved in hiring the next manager. Those who see his major crime as having dispensed with Kerr without having a better replacement up his sleeve shouldn't be so quick to fall into precisely the same trap.