'The past has been tough' - Ireland's confidence problem may be beyond repair

Gavin Cooney

HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON WASN’T a minute into his slightly punch-drunk summation of Ireland’s rout at Wembley until he alighted upon the ‘C’ word. 

“I am lost for words. Six minutes of madness. It was a shock conceding a penalty, conceding a goal, losing a player.

“We probably lost our heads a this moment, leading into a second and third goal. Lost our heads. Gave up.

“We struggle with confidence and it clearly took away all confidence from what we did really well in first half.” 

Confidence has been a preoccupation of the early months of Hallgrimsson’s reign. In September, at the end of his first introduction to the squad, he deduced that they were a group whose confidence was shattered. 

“It feels”, he said, “like the jersey is too heavy for some players.”

His plan to fix it was to build confidence in step with consistency of selection, but injury and the need to experiment ahead of the World Cup qualifiers has meant little consistency: Andrew Moran came off the bench as the 32nd different player used by Hallgrimsson in six games. 

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Confidence, it seems, is not improving either, and Hallgrimsson linked its absence to the second-half collapse at Wembley. 

Ireland had a clear, if limited, gameplan, and in the first half they executed it well. Nathan Collins stood in front of the back four in what could be termed a 4-1-4-1, but Collins was there to gum up the middle and force England wide, thus blunting the influences of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. 

But once Ireland were caught slightly out of shape early in the second half, Kane’s stunning pass to Bellingham was enough to trigger a collapse. Liam Scales fouled Bellingham, was sent off, and five minutes Ireland were 3-0 down and hoping the ground would swallow them up. 

Such is the chasm of quality between the sides, Ireland should not be dragged over the coals for losing to England with 10 men. But there is a niggling worry: did the collapse have to be that comprehensive? Did Ireland really have to concede three times in less than six minutes?

While the second goal was unfortunate as Nathan Collins’ clearance hit Josh Cullen and fell perfectly for Anthony Gordon, goals three and four came from set-pieces. Goal five was a cross into a penalty area still populated with tall Irish centre-halves. 

If Ireland’s smithereened confidence played a role in this avalanche of goals, then Ireland have a major problem going into World Cup qualifying, where they will be drawn against at least one nation broadly of England’s standing. 

Hallgrimsson’s most urgent task going into next year is to mend some of this confidence. Doing so will be an enormous task, as these players would not be human if their belief has not been dented by years of misery with Ireland. 

They have become scarily inured to losing, and losing in every possible way. They have now been encouraged against and then humiliated by England, having lost lamely and passively to them in September; they have been gallant in defeat to France and wretched in defeat to Greece; they have lost late heartbreakers to teams that should be beating them, and been beaten narrowly by teams they should be beating. 

The scale of the accumulated misery is quite jarring. Of the 11 players who started against England yesterday, only Liam Scales has not lost at least twice as many competitive games as he has won in an Ireland jersey. (His record reads: won three, lost four.) 

Caoimhín Kelleher, Josh Cullen, Sammie Szmodics, Festy Ebosele, and Evan Ferguson have all lost exactly twice as many competitive games as they have played, while the ratio among the rest of the team is even worse. 

Callum O’Dowda has been dogged by injury throughout his career, but he made his debut for Ireland just prior to Euro 2016, and has lost eight and won just three of his 15 competitive appearances. 

Nathan Collins has won five and lost 13; Dara O’Shea has won the same number of games but lost 14. Jayson Molumby has made 23 competitive appearances for Ireland and won just four of then, losing 15. 

This is a run that stretches across years, under multiple managers, and it’s difficult to see how it will improve. 

Ireland have taken some encouraging steps under Hallgrimsson, most obviously beating Finland home and away, even if the Aviva victory was rooted more in luck than judgement. The first half at Wembley, too, was a reasonably positive thing, given Ireland had a clear gameplan with which to survive against a superior opponent, and they executed with clarity and zeal. But once they took a punch, they could not roll with what was to come. 

“If you can play like this for 50 minutes, let’s hope next game we can do it for longer”, replied Hallgrimsson when asked if he feared his squad’s confidence issues cannot be fixed. “And with a little luck, if we got a penalty and scored a goal, it is a totally different game. It is a psychological advantage to us until the scenario we had today.

“I believe in these guys, but the past has been tough. We just need to use this to our advantage, take the positives from this game.”