Ken Early: Ireland’s players look like they’re finally enjoying it again

It is said that in the streets of Luxembourg City they are calling Ireland “the clockwork orange.” The 1,000 or so Ireland fans who made the trip to see the last match of the World Cup qualifiers got to see the orange-shirted Irish team fight its way off the ropes and finish the game in style with a flurry of goals, including one the likes of which you struggle to recall an Irish team scoring before.

There didn’t seem much on when Chiedozie Ogbene chased Jeff Hendrick’s pass up the right wing, but as Ogbene closed down Michael Pinto, Hendrick was following close behind, meaning he was in position to intercept Pinto’s poor pass into midfield. Hendrick bore down on the penalty area and sent Jason Knight through with a perceptive ball that flummoxed the Luxembourg back line. Knight’s beautiful touch took the keeper out of the game and Ogbene lifted it over the last defender to kill off the game at 2-0.

The goal combined energy and persistence with intelligent teamwork and quality passing. This was the kind of football Stephen Kenny was talking about when he came into the job. Opta pointed out that it was Ireland’s 19th goal in 2021: meaning the team had scored two more goals in 12 internationals this year than they had managed across 27 matches in 2018, 2019 and 2020. A few minutes later Knight set up Robinson for goal number 20.

At 3-0, with the fans singing Stephen Kenny’s name and the FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill tweeting from the stands about how much he was enjoying the game, it was easy to forget that not long before Ireland had been taking a battering. They had needed a kind decision from the Hungarian referee to cancel out what had looked like the first goal of the game for Luxembourg. The officials decided that Shane Duffy had been pushed in the build-up, but it was the kind of incident where you would have been frustrated to see a goal ruled out.

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The goal was characteristic of the quarter-hour after half-time when Luxembourg were dominant and Ireland threatened to disintegrate. Gerson Rodrigues should certainly have put the home side ahead when Duffy’s pass out of defence was intercepted just in front of the Irish penalty area, but his effort lacked the height to beat Bazunu, who caught the ball with some relief.

As Ireland have learned and re-learned through this qualifying campaign, those spells of dominance mean nothing if you don’t take your chances. Just after the hour mark Kenny decided he had to make a change. Adam Idah came off, Knight came on, and Ireland changed the system to 3-5-2. The impact was immediate. Ireland no longer seemed swamped in midfield with Knight in there to work with Hendrick and Cullen, and slowly they began to wrestle back control of the game.

Knight turned out to be the key player over the last 25 minutes, winning the free-kick that led to Ireland’s first goal and setting up the other two with beautiful lay-offs. Who knows what the Derby midfielder might have helped Ireland to do in those close matches against Portugal and Serbia in September, if he had not been ruled out with an injury sustained after a challenge in training from his manager, Wayne Rooney.

That was another example of what we used to think of as typical Stephen Kenny luck, but there are signs his luck is starting to change. For the first time even the coronavirus did Ireland a favour, ruling out Luxembourg’s first-choice keeper Anthony Moris. His replacement, Ralph Schon, suffered a clash of heads with Shane Duffy in the first half and gave a performance that could generously be described as skittish, though there was little he could do to prevent any of the goals.

Of course there are those who will say that winning 3-0 in Luxembourg means nothing, that Luxembourg are just a poor side, etc. It’s an argument that requires only one word: “Luxembourg!” In fact Luxembourg have some good players. Christopher Martins was part of the Young Boys midfield that beat Manchester United 2-1 in September. Sebastian Thill has been shooting the lights out in the Champions League all season for Sheriff, following up a spectacular winner against Real Madrid with a stunning free kick against Inter - and he started both matches against Ireland on the bench. The sense that Ireland should be hammering these guys is rooted in ignorance of who these guys actually are.

But if Luxembourg have some footballers who are currently playing at a level above any of the Irish players, by the end Ireland had proved themselves the better team. The second half was some of the most encouraging performances yet, as they displayed first resilience and tactical flexibility, and then confidence and creativity.

Most of all, the players look like they are enjoying playing for Ireland again - and how many times have we been able to say that in the nearly 20 years since Saipan?