Glass always half empty for RTÉ’s sporting gurus

Given his past brushes with the law over his alcohol intake, it’s perhaps a little ironic to describe Eamon Dunphy as a ‘glass half empty’ merchant – but bloody hell, he can be a hard man to please.

To look at himself, Gilesy and Chippy on the panel, you’d have thought that someone got mixed up and invited a team of undertakers to plan the wedding.

They were in bad, bad form in a way that probably better reflected the mood in Germany than it did on the streets of Dublin – but these boys are loved for the analytics, not their emotions.

Our Boys in Green had just held the World Champions to a famous draw in Gelsenkirchen but to listen to Eamon you’d have thought we’d been hockeyed off the pitch.

The other pair weren’t much better, neither aided by the fact that they sound like oul fellas giving out about the rest of the world from the comfort of their high stool at the bar.

They’re the bores you’d do 360 degree turns to avoid on a night out; they’d see a Lotto win as an unwelcome financial burden that would ruin your life.

And yes, they are employed as analysts which means not getting caught in the trap of looking like fans with access to the airwaves – but it’s actually alright to be fans too.

We’re not going to get all technical here, but they did of course have a point that Glenn Whelan isn’t an international footballer and that someone should have closed down the German scorer, Toni Kroos, before he got the chance to finally beat Galway’s finest, David Forde, between the posts.

And they are right to suggest that Jon Walters is no winger, Aiden McGeady is no central midfielder and that Wes Houlihan brings an attacking flair to the team that is otherwise lacking.

But Dunphy’s assertion that this was just the Trapattoni era with a Derry accent….a team with ‘no belief with the ball, no conviction’? Seriously.

“We’re not going to qualify – there’s no ifs, buts or maybes. It has to be called what it is,” he told the viewing world, ignoring the fact that we’re actually joint top of our qualifying group, that we’ve drawn away to World Champions and have beaten another of our rivals away from home.

The fact that it took a late goal and a last gasp goal to achieve this makes it all the sweeter – unless you’re mounting a one-man campaign for Wes Houlihan to become the fulcrum of our Green Army.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.