Gallows humour from odd O'Neill
Posted on 27/02/2010Sir Alex Ferguson has had the measure of just about every manager he has come across during his glittering reign at Manchester United, from the Kevin Keegan “I’d love it” debacle to the Rafael Benitez “these are facts” rant. But if Ferguson can work out what’s going through the mind of his Carling Cup final foe, Martin O’Neill, on Sunday, he’s a better man than you or me – as Michael Walker reveals in the Daily Mail...
August 22, 2002: Neil Lennon is 24 hours on from the loyalist death-threat telephone call that terminated his Northern Ireland career and is back in Glasgow at his club, Celtic.Awaiting him there is his manager Martin O’Neill who, like Lennon, is a Northern Irish Catholic and who, like Lennon, captained his country. O’Neill did so in the turbulent days of the early 1980s. So there would be understanding, sympathy, or so Lennon thought.
As he tells it, though, on returning to Celtic, O’Neill met Lennon with the words: ‘Ah, Neil, so you got my phone call, then?’
Reminded of this on Thursday, O’Neill laughed out loud. Of course there had been sympathy for Lennon, but as O’Neill said: ‘That’d be like something I’d come out with.’ Black, gallows humour to some; green, Irish humour to O’Neill.
Switching focus, O’Neill then sheds light on United legend George Best...
I played in Hull for Northern Ireland, my second cap. George Best played. The genius. I’ll never forget he arrived with his business partner from Manchester, the boutique man. We were staying in Scarborough. Met up at lunchtime. Bestie didn’t arrive.Then he turned up at 10 o’clock — blitzed. He’d been on a pub crawl from Manchester to Scarborough. I remember him in the dressing room clattering his boots on the floor to get the mud off. They hadn’t been cleaned from his last match. I never saw a player want to get sent off as much. I think he finally spat at the referee.
However, O’Neill’s fondest memory is reserved for Portugal legend Eusebio...
My memory of that Portugal game was purely football, because Eusebio was playing. He might have been on his last legs but he played and I scored.I remember in the last 15 minutes starting to hope I might get Eusebio’s shirt. I noticed then that Bryan Hamilton was standing very close to Eusebio and not because he was marking him. So Hamilton took the shirt, much to my disgust. I exchanged shirts with another Portuguese player — lovely shirts, great colouring — but I walked off not completely happy.
I was still needing something from Eusebio. So I went up to him in the tunnel and pointed to his shorts. And he took his shorts off. Went into his dressing room in his underpants. Great shorts, wee stripe down the side of them.
O’Neill is clearly two cookies short of a biscuit jar, but the award for crazy man of the day may very well go to former England rugby union centre Will Greenwood who, in the Daily Telegraph, cites Brian O’Driscoll as the weak link that England must exploit at Twickenham...
Ireland have issues, and oddly it is a policy aimed at the future that could hurt them today. England have to expose this weakness, which is called Brian O'Driscoll. Let me explain.Ireland's back line, with Brian at its heart, has had one of the best drift defences in the business. But defensive systems are constantly adapting and changing, alternating between drifting (sliding across the field and shepherding the attack into a blind alley) and blitzing.
Wasps used the blitz to win titles and Heineken Cups. The South Africans have used it to win a World Cup. When done well, it is unbelievably oppressive. You cut off a team's ability to use width as a weapon, forcing people back inside and getting multiple turnovers. The ability to blitz is now a must-have fashion accessory. Le blitz, c'est chic. But it is also a risk reward-strategy, and it does not suit all teams.
The most important thing to remember is that you cannot force a system on a team that it does not suit. Perhaps the Irish brains believe they need the blitz to win the World Cup in 2011, in which case I look forward to watching it improve. What it means just now, however, is that when you play with speed against Ireland they are vulnerable. Its main effect is to reduce the defensive effectiveness of O'Driscoll, a centre who plays like the best flanker.
He is not drifting anymore because he is leading the line-up on the blitz. So if a break is made inside he has no chance of getting back. More importantly, it exposes him to a system that I just don't think is his or Ireland's style. Against France it exposed Ireland as a team still coming to terms with a new reality.
Early on Mathieu Bastareaud ran through a hole big enough for a bus and in the scramble Rob Kearney was injured and put out of the game. Later Francois Trinh-Duc waltzed past O'Driscoll on his inside and Jauzion gratefully accepted the five points. For the Clement Poitrenaud try O'Driscoll, in attempting to shut off the width when they were on the back foot, got himself into an awkward position to tackle Bastareaud, who offloaded for the try.
Ireland's defensive problems are like England's attacking issues. You cannot blame it all on O'Driscoll just as you cannot point the finger solely at Jonny Wilkinson. But your defensive captain and leader of the line is more often than not a centre. The invitation is there for England to focus on O'Driscoll, play with tempo and try to expose a fault line.