{"id":4466,"date":"2025-09-06T22:57:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4466\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T22:57:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T22:57:24","slug":"ireland-show-great-character-but-hallgrimssons-principles-werent-on-show-in-the-opening-15-minutes-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/4466\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland show great character but Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s principles weren\u2019t on show in the opening 15 minutes \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republic of Ireland<\/a> head coach Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> has been clear on the things we should judge his Ireland team on. His stated intention is for them to be excellent in specific areas \u2013 structure, physicality, setpieces, fast attacking among others.<\/p>\n

After 15 minutes here, it felt like he had been playing a sick joke on us, as if his intention all along had been to draw attention to the things his team aren\u2019t actually very good at at all.<\/p>\n

Structure? The opening goal was a parody of structure. Matt Doherty\u2019s headed clearance came back quickly, it\u2019s true. But the Wolves full-back\u2019s half-shuffled jog out to join the rest of the defensive line was anathema to a successful structure and Ireland were immediately punished.<\/p>\n

Physicality? Finn Azaz got bundled off the ball at the edge of the box in the moments before that first goal. Had he been stronger in the duel, had he at least broken even, the ball wouldn\u2019t have been hoiked so quickly back into the danger area and Doherty\u2019s lethargy in getting out might not have mattered.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Match Report: Idah rescues late draw for Ireland in World Cup qualifier against HungaryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Good at setpieces? Yikes! The second Hungarian goal was nothing more sophisticated than an outswinging corner from Dominik Szoboszlai and an uncontested header at the near post for Roland Sallai. They weren\u2019t undone by some genius bit of setpiece jiggery-pokery. They just didn\u2019t attack the cross. Sallai can\u2019t have believed his luck.<\/p>\n

And as for fast attacking, you lost count of the amount of times \u2013 in the first half especially \u2013 that Josh Cullen, Doherty, Jake O\u2019Brien and Jason Knight turned back when Ireland had promising situations. Maybe Ireland\u2019s confidence was shot at that stage after losing the two early goals but whatever the reason, it wasn\u2019t the bravado and intent that had been billed.<\/p>\n

\"RepublicRepublic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson speaks to Jake O’Brien. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

In fairness to Hallgr\u00edmsson and his side, the tide started to turn even before the Evan Ferguson<\/a> goal and Sallai\u2019s sending off. Those first principles came more into evidence as the first half went on and Ireland came to terms with the fact that Hungary were gettable. <\/p>\n

They started winning more and more duels and rattled into their opposition. They had a clear way of building the play, playing long diagonals to Jake O\u2019Brien at the corner of the box and fighting for second balls. They broke at pace and looked dangerous at corners and free-kicks. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland player ratings: Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher recovers well, Evan Ferguson shows his smartsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

All of this got ramped up when Hungary went down to 10 players. All the things Hallgr\u00edmsson wants his players to be good at came to fruition. This is obviously a lot easier when you have an extra man and clearly, it\u2019s unlikely that Ireland would have dug out the draw had it stayed 11 v 11. Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher<\/a> bailed them out a couple of times, even with the man advantage.<\/p>\n

Hallgrimsson can be rightly proud of the way his team fought back into the game and didn\u2019t give it up as a dead loss, but they can\u2019t let that opening 15 minutes happen again. If they do, his principles won\u2019t count for much in the long run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republic of Ireland head coach Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson has been clear on the things we should judge his Ireland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4409,4700,61,60,43,1842,4018],"class_list":["post-4466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-analysis","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4466","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=4466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}