Ireland beating Holland, Classic! Classic! Classic!

I am disappointed that the BBC 'Past Masters' didn't see fit to mention this, whatever it is.

jesus keane's goal was beautiful
dunphy rhapsodising about him at half time was only encouraging me to get my hopes up
ireland are looking excellent
i wish we were in euro 2004...

me too about euro 2004, really exciting performance yesterday, I presume you were out on Saturday Robin? At the Shelter?

What a goal. My favourite Irish goal ever. I never liked Ronald Whelan's vs Dasaev, really, though I could see its 'technique'. But this one - running from the half-way line then shooting from 20 yards!! Jayzus!

The rest of the performance was remarkably calm and solid too.

hooray! echoing the "wish we were in euro 2004" sentiments. can't wait for the qualifiers. o'brien has secured the centre-half spot beside cunningham, and a few of the fringe players were impressive (quinn and barret f'rinstance). i like a.reid's long passing too. mcateers's goal in holland (the 2-2 draw) was similarly excellent.

reid looks a magnificent player. but it's the style of play Kerr has brought to the team that's really impressive, such good movement and passing, like a true international team. bring on France!

did miller play?

argh want to see Keane's goal now. my favourite Irish goals tho, based on memory so nothing before '94 i'm afraid:

1) Ray Houghton vs Italy (1994)
2) Robbie Keane vs Germany (2002)
3) John Aldridge vs Mexico (1994)
4) Jason Mcateer vs Holland (2001)
5) Matt Holland vs Cameroon (2002)

Alan McLoughlin against Northern Ireland, 1993. the tears of sadness changed to tears of joy. I actually remember the same thing happened with Ronnie Whelan's tap in for Liverpool against Portsmouth in the 1992 FA Cup.

Keane's goal was better than all of the above - though they were all in highly charged competitive games.
And if you look at it that way, the best Irish goal ever was David O'Leary's penalty vs Romania in the 1990 World Cup. Or Ray Houghton's header against England in 1988....

It was an encouraging game though - who knows what the team will be like with Keane running midfield, Duff running at defences and O'Shea shoring up at the back? If France either win or have a terrible time at Euro 2004 they could well be there for the taking in our first game with them....

Saturday's disastrous game has thrown the Dutch public into a mix of despair and loathing towards the national squad. Both the coach and all analysts openly admit their desparation too and see no possible options that haven't failed before. Expectations are probably lower than ever.

But that squad : Davids, Van Nistelrooy, Kluivert, Seedorf, Van der Vaart, Schneider, van Der Meyde, Makaay, Van Hoojdonk.....

Admittedly you do seem to have a slight problem in defence. What happened to Kevin Hofland?

I've forgotten what wing Reid goes down (Duff is left-sided, isn't he?) but having them two down the wings together... that'd be pretty scary.

Goal something along the lines of: Van Nistelrooy loses possession to Alan Maybury on the edge of the Irish area, with the Dutch in naff-all hurry to get the ball back. Maybury pops it to Reid (I think), who gives it to Keane. Keane sets off towards the Dutch area, Morrison to his right at all times (waving arm a lot). Dutch backing off him. Reid then makes a superb overlapping run, which bamboozles Bouma into running into Stam, while (I think) Reiziger is too occupied with Morrison, leaving a gaping hole in front of the right-hand-side of the goal (from where Keane is facing). 25 yards out, Keane takes it on his right and shoots low and hard with enough swerve to just take it away from a full-stretch Van Der Sar and nestle into the right-hand side of the net. Super-fine.

It's true, the decoy run was key.

One reason the result impressed me: this was second-string Ireland, up to a point; and the commentator said at the outset that he just hoped they didn't get thrashed. And he meant it, kindly.

Jeez - I'm starting to think it was John Helm. Was it?

- Van Nistelrooij and Kluivert don't seem to be able to perform together or alone. Especially Kluivert hasn't played even a decent game for the national squad in years and nobody seems to understand why.

- Makaay doesn't seem to be able to play effectively with either of the two above, and despite his good form at the moment isn't top choice for a 1-central-striker 4-3-3 scenario.

- despite his solid playing at Milan Seedorf is still national bogeyman number one for an extraordinarily long streak of weak games in the national team (and for missing three penalty kicks at various times) while still laying down demands on what position he wants to play. Much to everyone's surprise he has performed rather well lately though.

- Van Der Vaart and Sneijder have played very weak at Ajax in the 2nd half of the season and seem to be disappear when they're called upon. People start to suspect that their good performance against Scotland was just a one-off.

- Van der Meyde has been warming the bench at Inter almost all season, riddled with small injuries. Whether he'll ever be as good as he was two years ago is anyone's guess.

- Van Hooijdonk is on fire at the moment but there's no chance in hell he'll ever get a starting position with three strikers from top European clubs competing with him.

- Davids was one of the few who looked solid, but seemed to be half asleep during the Ireland game. Everybody is hoping he was deliberately taking it easy.

- Over the last few seasons, Kevin Hofland has proved to be rediculously injury-prone and his development as a player has all but stagnated at PSV. The only two defenders who could arguably have been included are Mario Melchiot of Chelsea and Nigel De Jong of Ajax, but neither are particularly good.

your consolation is that Germany have similar problems and appear to be worse, and not even the Czech coach is confident about his defence according to BBC Sport. it's all looking evermore tangible for plucky Latvia!

Are you all scaremongering so that people change their fantasy football squads and you win, eh? EH?

Yup, John Helm and John Aldridge.

It was Ireland's second string, and they were good. A full-strength Ireland would be quite something, one assumes. But on that evidence, Andy Reid is much too good for Forest to hang onto, and Graham Barrett could yet prove to have not entirely suffered from never seeing Arsenal's first team (c.f. Given at Blackburn). Oh, and all that stuff people always say about Kenny Cunningham being under-rated - all true.

Reid and Keane were excellent.

Clinton Morrison had a bit of a stinker, though. Ireland had chances by the ton throughout the game, including a totally open header for him which his forehead somehow managed to completely miss, despite him jumping and doing the neck-flick and everything. Keane then did this amazing over-head kick thing almost parallel to the crossbar to keep it in play and it nearly went in...

Yes - that was tremendous too.