HARRY’S GAME LIFTS THE MOOD IN AVIVA
THERE is dignity, still, in the observance of a minute’s silence. It is overused in sport, often the result of the age’s urge to be seen to care.
But in the aftermath of revolting attacks in Manchester and London, it was proper that innocent people murdered and maimed were remembered last night.
It was fitting that it happens, too, at a gathering of the type that is vulnerable to murderous lunacy. There is no softer target than sports fans, and the tissuethin margins that separate barbarity and civilisation will have been on the mind of more than one mother and father walking their children down a sunlit Lansdowne Road yesterday evening.
A line of the poet Robert Frost resurfaces at these times: ‘In three words I can sum up everypick, thing I’ve learned about life: it goes on.’ That is no consolation for those lives soused by these tragedies, but for everyone else it is the truth, however bleak-seeming.
A minute’s silence in a Dublin stadium was no more than the expression of regret and with it, respect. It was the right thing to do. Decency shouldn’t be rationed in these times.
We should be thankful, as well, that our cities have not become prey for murderers as those of our neighbours have. A harmless friendly at the end of a gruelling season was not disrupted by exhaustive security checks, and the modest crowd that visited the Aviva Stadium could indulge in a contest with more spirit than one might have counted on.
The official spin had it that there were places up for contest in the Ireland team ahead of the important World Cup qualifier against Austria next Sunday. The fact is that owing to a limited the good competitive form of his favoured team, and his own disinclination towards unnecessary experimentation, Martin O’Neill’s starting team will hold no surprises beyond those caused by injuries.
But this was a good match for Harry Arter. The Bournemouth midfielder plays a forceful, ceaseless game, and he brings a zip to the central areas of the pitch that James McCarthy too often fails to and that Glenn Whelan cannot manage.
He was Ireland’s best ball-winner and will be the most effective one in the team O’Neill picks for the Austrians.
Cyrus Christie needs matches to work his way into the beat of the side, and another sound display here helped him. There is no question of Christie auditioning for the right-back position Seamus Coleman will not fill for many months; he is the undoubted replacement.
His attacking play does not result in the possibilities presented by Coleman, but he scored one of the more fortunate goals this place has seen. It was Ireland’s second, and it came when Christie passed the ball towards the Uruguay line with his left foot.
The ungainly opposing defender Sebastian Coates, once of Liverpool, swung at it with the wild, uncoordinated enthusiasm of a toddler and his contortions did enough to distract the goalkeeper, with Christie’s pass rolling in to the goal beyond Esteban Conde.
Ireland deserved to lead and should have done at half time but Jon Walters, scorer of a fine opening goal, hit the crossbar from a position where scoring seemed so inevitable it channelled a miss by another former Liverpool player, Ronnie Rosenthal.
The interest levels of the Uruguayans fluctuated, but the needle dived towards the red after 11 and a half minutes when their sole superstar left the field. Edinson Cavani walked off, apparently injured. It was possible to imagine him back home in Monaco in time for the start of The Sunday Game.
Dublin in June holds no attraction for a man like that, but with his departure the visitors lost one of their most diverting features.
Still, there was a chirpy enough Irish effort to keep the 20,000-odd crowd watching. O’Neill aired his replacements’ bench in the second half and a substitute, Keiren Westwood, provided one of Ireland’s best moments in diving to his left to push away a header by Jose Gimenez.
Do not expect to see him preferred to O’Neill’s chosen No1, Darren Randolph, but the latter made a hames of the Uruguay goal.
At their best, Ireland pulled off some snappy moves, the best of them starting with Daryl Murphy’s cute pass for James McClean to hare clear and whizz in Ireland’s third goal.
That confirmed a handsome victory against a technical team whose interest levels had dwindled.
More importantly, it concluded a happy day in a world that had dawned darkly.
Christie needs matches to work into the beat of the side