IRELAND BOSS MARTIN O’Neill admitted Shane Long was feeling frustrated with his inability to score.
The Tipperary native has yet to find the back of the net in nine appearances for club and country this season, and the 30-year-old wasted some gilt-edged chances to break his duck at the Aviva Stadium against Moldova on Friday night.
“Shane is a centre-forward and centre-forwards thrive first of all on goals, they have to score,” O’Neill said. “He has just remarked to me going into the tunnel after the game that he can’t buy a goal at the moment, and that might sum it up at the minute.
But he had some really great chances, chances that you think that he would normally have taken. They didn’t go in and sometimes your confidence is affected by that.
“We created some really good chances for him – I think he had three that maybe on another day, he would have scored and that would have been nice for him.
But it is what it is at the minute.”
Asked if Daryl Murphy, who registered an impressive brace to earn Ireland a well-deserved win, had done enough to displace Long as Ireland’s main striker, O’Neill gave a cagey response.
Who knows, who knows? Murphy played really well. The second goal he scored was particularly brilliant, because he was leaning back a little bit. I’m really pleased for him.
“(Jokingly) He’s normally at 60 minutes usually calling for a stretcher anyway at some stage or another, so I think he was surprised to find out that he was still playing after 71 or 72 minutes.
We needed him on the field at the time. He did really well and I suppose the possibility that he could score again might have entered his head, maybe not mine.”
Both Murphy and Hoolahan were kept on a little longer than might have been expected for two veterans, nonetheless O’Neill defended his decision.
As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is to win a game — that’s number one. You certainly don’t want them to be bereft at the end of it all with some players coming off. Particularly Murphy, who made a big impression and scored his two goals. I thought Wes did fine.
“If we got the third goal, I certainly would have considered players coming off in the game a wee bit earlier. That’s the nature of it. But when there’s the possibility of the team scoring and then having a nervy 10 or 12 minutes at the end, that would certainly be a concern.
I’m well aware of the age of the lads, Wes is almost the same age as me I think. He is a boy, but he’s a really good lad and I thought he did fine tonight.”
O’Neill also reserved praise for the youngest member of the side, 22-year-old Callum O’Dowda, who caught the eye on his full competitive debut.
I’ve got a lot of time for him. When I saw him playing for the U21s, I brought him in to train with the seniors a way back quite some time ago, and eventually he came on against Moldova in Moldova at the time when it was 1-1, so that would have shown a bit of confidence in the lad.
“My advice to him at club level when he gets the opportunity was to drive at people, which he can. He can manoeuvre the ball well, he’s got a little bit of pace and he’s growing in confidence, and getting more playing time at club level has helped him as well — helped his general fitness.
He’s a really, really good lad and I wish him the very best. I have a lot of time for him — obviously I have a lot of time for him, I started him tonight in a very important game.”
Video by Eoin Lúc Ó Ceallaigh
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