Ireland trounced Georgia 1-0 tonight after a scintillating second half display of hard running and energetic pressing. And Seamus Coleman's beautifully engineered quadruple one-two finish.
But cast your minds back to three hours ago and how did we all feel?
The Drumcondra bruiser rarely finds Irish team selections to his liking but he absolutely torched this one. He suggested that Martin had squeezed his eyes and picked names out of a hat.
Eamon Dunphy not happy "they must of picked that team from out of a hat" ???
— sean flood (@floody_s) October 6, 2016
Dunphy slating the irish team on rte now.. he was asking for half these lads to start a few months back #IREGEO #RTE
— Jimmy Dillane (@JimmyDillane) October 6, 2016
Tensions were getting frayed early on... Richie Sadlier observed that Georgia have only won two competitive games away from home in the last decade. To which Eamon Dunphy felt obliged to add that they had beaten Spain in an away friendly, with rather more cattiness than was necessary.
"You're not Gilesy. You're not my real Dad!", screams Dunphy as he pulls up Richie Sadlier #IREGEO
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) October 6, 2016
Strict moralists weren't able to let go of the crime against shirt numbers that Ireland committed pre-game. The no. 7 shirt was stuffed into Shane Duffy's paw. Surely there'd be bad karma here.
The number 7 shirt is sacred on most teams & reserved for the team superstar. In Ireland, we give it to a Brighton centre half. #IREvGEO
— Michael Coyle (@mycoyle18) October 6, 2016
And we're away...
Ireland had a lucky escape early on as Shane Long was felled in the box but the referee was no Viktor Kassai and waved play on.
The consensus was that Ireland dodged a bullet here, avoiding the appalling vista of scoring an early goal.
Ten minutes gone & we've avoided the calamity of scoring early again. So far so good. #COYBIG
— Frank McNally (@FrankmcnallyIT) October 6, 2016
After the early relief of witnessing Ireland not go 1-0 up, things took a nosedive as Ireland proceeded to play as if they were 1-0 up.
This has been the worst 30 mins of football to watch. No shot on target and just hoofing it up #irevgeo
— Nial O'Farrell (@NialOFarrell) October 6, 2016
Right lads, Georgia have hit the bar AND the post. Time to wake up!!! #IREvGEO
— Trevor Spillane (@TrevorSpillane) October 6, 2016
Ireland are miles off the pace here. Georgia dominating (which is a disgrace). COYBIG
— Paddy Casey (@PaddyCasey87) October 6, 2016
As the half wore on, the online branch of the Irish football family vented its fury. This is par for the course these days but the twitter community is finding it has to up the ante with every terrible performance. There was much competition to tweet out the most damning sentiment. Donal Rafferty's was perhaps the most poignant effort.
Normally I'd have a bit of a rant but this is so awful I don't even care #ireVGeo
— Donal Rafferty (@DonalNotDonald) October 6, 2016
An Ireland game was once more being soundtracked by Ronnie Whelan's exasperated whine.
In this unforgiving age, rare is the co-commentator who gets through 90 minutes or even 45 minutes these days without attracting the attention of twitter "for all the wrong reasons".
As we noted earlier, the anger football fans feel towards co-commentators is comparable only to the anger US conspiracy theorists feel towards the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Ronnie Whelan is no different.
I've come to the conclusion that no matter what we do Ronnie Whelan will give out. #IREGEO
— Joe Carroll (@JoeCarroll17) October 6, 2016
Ronnie Whelan ya havent a clue , ya talk some crap #pony #IREGEO
— Scott Farrell (@scottf1916) October 6, 2016
Half-time arrives. The consensus appeared to be that this was the worst half of football Ireland had put in in quite a while and that is no small thing to say. Some went further.
That's the worst 45 minutes of anything, ever #COYBIG
— Second Captains (@SecondCaptains) October 6, 2016
TBF, that's the worst competitive half I've sat through from an Irish team at Lansdowne Road since the last days of Trapattoni.
— Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) October 6, 2016
One can hope Roy Keane is saying in dressing room what he'd say on ITV.
— Ciarán Ó Raghallaigh (@Ciaran_O) October 6, 2016
Halftime substitution for Ireland: entire @DundalkFC XI on, entire Ireland XI off.
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) October 6, 2016
Second half and the vibes were all different. Ireland played with the liberated air of men who've already embarrassed themselves slightly in the first half and thus decide they'd better have a proper cut at it.
Just shy of the hour mark, Seamie Coleman decided he'd have enough of this shite and went on a run. He skinned the Georgian full back on the outside and then expertly engineered the trusty quadruple one-two. Never fails.
Aboy Seamie. The old four one-twos move, works every time.
— Malachy Clerkin (@MalachyClerkin) October 6, 2016
A goal worthy to win next goal wins at lunch time in the school yard #coybig #IREvGEO
— Colm Gannon (@ColmGannon) October 6, 2016
The Telegraph's new goal illustration thing will really struggle to replicate that Coleman goal
— aidan o'hara (@oharaa) October 6, 2016
Seamus Coleman scored the most ridiculous goal for Ireland this evening #COYBIG pic.twitter.com/GivrXYtzfy
— TheSportsHangout (@Sports_Hangout) October 6, 2016
Top humour from Jim Beglin.
Excellent from Coleman with a big assist from Rick O' Shea! #IREGEO #COYBIG
— Jim Beglin (@jimbeglin) October 6, 2016
Alas, Ireland's burst of positivity was never going to survive that body blow of going 1-0 up. We dutifully surrendered the initiative to our hosts for a few minutes. Thankfully, it turned out to be something of a blip. Ireland were not about to slip back into their first half coma. The energy and the adventure returned.
Ten minutes remaining and there was great alarm when Robbie Brady hit the deck and looked to be out stone cold. He was turned into the recovery position and a Georgian centre-half rummaged around his mouth, making sure his tongue wasn't swallowed.
A deep cross was sent to the back post, Long pinged a header into the centre where the green shirts were arriving in big numbers. Robbie attempted to redirect it into the net but got into a nasty clash of heads with a Georgian defender. He showed few obvious signs of life for a few seconds. After some minutes, he was stretchered off after lying by an army of medics.
Robbie Brady unconscious, hitting ground limp, showed tremendous bravery. I'd imagine they're taking all the precautions with neck etc
— Daragh Ó Conchúir (@RebelDevil71) October 6, 2016
Scary moment. Feel well, Robbie Brady. #IREGEO #Ireland #coybig
— David Okeeffe (@daveok1919) October 6, 2016
#ROBBIE BRADY. HOPEFULLY HE WILL BE OK. #COYBIG. pic.twitter.com/p27OPqvbe7
— MartinMcdonald@25gma (@MartinM79510567) October 6, 2016
Jeff Hendrick would not be sampling the delights of Moldova. He saw yellow for breaking giving an opponent a look at his studs. He won the ball but had already broken a cardinal rule.
Yellow card for Jeff Hendrick and he will miss the Moldova game.
— Ciarán Butler ن (@CloverSoldier) October 6, 2016
We had a curious moment halfway through the length injury time, Ronnie Whelan could be heard vaguely in the background ruminating on who he was going to toss the Man of the Match award to.
The gist of his comments were that in the absence of any more compelling candidates he would just give it to the goalscorer.
There was initial confusion as to whether Ronnie was in fact telling George and the viewers, though there was something off about his tone... He also asked "could you wait a couple of minutes..."
Sure enough, three minutes later, he told the world for a second time that Seamus Coleman would be getting Man of the Match, this time in a rather less caustic and cynical fashion.
John Kilroy spied an opportunity to make a killing. Alas, the bookies are wise to stuff like this.
#IREvGEO What did Ronnie whelan just say when he thought he was off mike? On to paddy power for motd??? #IREvGEO
— John Kilroy (@J2theK) October 6, 2016
Could someone not have told Ronnie Whelan that we all heard his MOTM pic 5 mins ago. #Coleman #FAI #Ireland
— Liam Maguire (@Strabane_Tyrone) October 6, 2016
Someone should tell Ronnie Whelan that he named Seamus Coleman MOTM about 5 mins ago accidentally #IREvGEO #COYBIG
— Denis O'Brien (@BlueDenis87) October 6, 2016
Ronnie Whelan shouting his MOTM nomination to the producer as George tells us about the subs. #RTEsoccer #IREGEO
— Darren Walsh (@A_Tottenham_Man) October 6, 2016
The final whistle came soon after and for all the missteps and the oohs and aahs, it ended with a predictable result.
We've all aged plenty in the last two hours. The prevailing attitude is "we've won 1-0. Now let's never speak of this again."
We were awful tonight but thankfully all that matters in the world of professional sport is the result! 3 points is 3 points! #IREvGEO
— Paul Treyvaud (@PaulTreyvaud) October 6, 2016
Irish football has taken a surreal turn of late. Eamon Dunphy wondering why Ireland can't play sexy football like Dundalk. #COYBIG
— Frank McNally (@FrankmcnallyIT) October 6, 2016
Good news at the end.
Robbie Brady is conscious in the dressing room. The medical team are taking every precaution possible. Thank you for your messages. #COYBIG
— FAIreland (@FAIreland) October 6, 2016
