{"id":366069,"date":"2026-03-26T11:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366069\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T11:11:08","slug":"can-ireland-lift-the-nation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366069\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Ireland lift the nation? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of this evening\u2019s tussle in Prague, how are the nerves? Shredded? Well, our piece on Ireland\u2019s playoff history<\/a> will do nothing to ease them, nor will Ken Early reminding us that it could all be settled on penalties . . . and the Czech Republic \u201chave the best penalty shootout record in world football\u201d<\/a>. Good grief. He talks to the creator of perhaps the most famous penalty of all, Anton\u00edn Panenka. <\/p>\n

Gavin Cummiskey, who hears from Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson and S\u00e9amus Coleman in his match preview, has lifted our spirits a bit though by pointing to Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher\u2019s penalty-saving record<\/a>. The Cork man has kept out eight of the 17 he has faced for club and country – including ones from luminaries such as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and Cristiano Ronaldo. <\/p>\n

Mind you, we\u2019re getting a bit ahead of ourselves with all this spot-kick natter, there\u2019s an actual match to be played first – and few sound more up for the challenge than Coleman<\/a>. \u201cThis football team can lift the nation,\u201d he said on the eve of his 78th cap, Gordon Manning listening in. <\/p>\n

With one goal in those 77 appearances, Coleman would be an unlikely scoring hero tonight, but aside from Troy Parrott and Robbie Brady, the only players in the squad on double digits<\/a>, there aren\u2019t any others with a mighty record on that front. Gordon looks through the numbers.<\/p>\n

Gavin, meanwhile, heard from Czech Republic manager Miroslav Koubek who denied that his comment last month about Ireland playing \u201cisland football\u201d<\/a> meant they were a touch primitive. He blamed Google Translate for the misunderstanding. We\u2019ve all been there. <\/p>\n

In rugby – yes, there are other sporting activities this week – John O\u2019Sullivan has done some number-crunching, counting the minutes our international players have played for their clubs<\/a> this season. \u201cWill Leinster, the last province standing in the premier European tournament, benefit from the IRFU\u2019s player management programme?\u201d<\/p>\n

And Michael Scully has news of a shock for Munster Rugby staff<\/a> who have been informed that a voluntary redundancy plan is being introduced due to mounting financial pressures at the province.<\/p>\n

In Gaelic games, Paul Keane talks to former Armagh forward Stefan Campbell about the impact new Kerry coach Kieran Donaghy is having<\/a> on the county, Campbell having worked with Donaghy during his time with Armagh.<\/p>\n

And in his America at Large column, Dave Hannigan tells us the remarkable story of how Ronnie Delany was treated by American crowds during his all-conquering running days, \u201cignorant bums\u201d and \u201cbackward baboons\u201d<\/a>, as one writer put it, booing him because \u201che never ran a fast mile in his life\u201d – he only ran to win.<\/p>\n

TV Watch: Shane Lowry and S\u00e9amus Power are in the field for the Houston Open which gets under way today, Sky Sports Golf\u2019s coverage starting at 12.30pm – you can read Philip Reid\u2019s tournament preview here<\/a> – and at 11.0 tonight the same channel switches to the LPGA Ford Championship where Leona Maguire and Lauren Walsh will be in action. <\/p>\n

Before then, the Republic of Ireland under-21 side host Moldova in Tallaght in their Euro 2027 qualifying group (Virgin Media Two, 5.15pm), and at 7.45pm it\u2019s kick-off time in Prague (RT\u00c9 2) – get those candles lit. The winners face either Denmark or North Macedonia, who meet at the same time (Virgin Media Two), while Northern Ireland are away to Italy in their play-off<\/a> (BBC1, 7.45pm). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of this evening\u2019s tussle in Prague, how are the nerves? Shredded? Well, our piece on Ireland\u2019s playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,46616],"class_list":["post-366069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sports-briefing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}