THE DETAILS ARE a little hazy now — perfectly understandable given it’s 18 years ago. But Alan Kernaghan does remember one thing about that autumnal evening in Austria.
“Jack blamed me for their first goal. There was a ball in from the right and it was a nice finish from Stoger to the far corner. At half-time he told me I wasn’t tight enough on their striker when the cross came in, that I should’ve got something on it. I just got on with the game. You never argued with Jack!”
The centre-back, then 28 and struggling for regular first-team football at Manchester City, made his international debut in 1992 and featured prominently throughout the qualification campaign for USA ’94 . The emergence of Phil Babb ensured his first-team opportunities became limited though he remained a valuable squad member for the remainder of Charlton’s time in charge. Deputising for Babb at the Ernst Happel Stadion in September ’95, Kernaghan partnered Paul McGrath at the heart of the Irish defence and he says the mood in the camp remained very positive, despite a 3-1 loss to the Austrians in Dublin the previous June.
“We were upbeat. We felt we still had a very good squad and the campaign had began brightly for us. The group of players that had come through the World Cup had served us well and you had younger lads like Jason (McAteer) and Gary (Kelly) coming through and becoming regulars. Maybe we lost a little experience with the likes of Kevin Moran retiring but we still had a group of very well-established guys”.
For many observers, the qualification campaign had started superbly but was faltering fast. The scoreless draw in Liechtenstein had garnered international ridicule. Ireland’s final 20 minutes in the home clash with Austria, in which they conceded three times to squander an initial lead, left many pondering Charlton’s approach. He attempted to stifle the Austrians in Vienna, selecting a five-man midfield but the hosts played on the counter-attack, flowing forward in numbers at every available opportunity. Kernaghan admits that the Austrians frenetic tactics left Ireland’s players dazed and confused.
“They were very good but we were a bit surprised by their approach. Outside of a game against Russia in Lansdowne, I can’t remember seeing anything like it from an international side. They pushed the full-backs on so we were left with 2 v 1 situations. It was very modern-day, an early incarnation of 4-2-3-1. They got a lot of bodies forward very quickly and destroyed us on the counter”.
Stoger grabbed a second with 25 minutes left, getting in behind Kelly, slaloming across the area and tucking his shot back across goal to the bottom corner. Though McGrath’s thunderous header made it 2-1 10 minutes later, any hopes of an Irish comeback were extinguished within moments. Stoger putting the finishing touch to an incisive move – drilling a low half-volley past Alan Kelly to rack up his hat-trick. Two successive defeats, six goals conceded across both games – qualification now seemed unlikely. For Kernaghan and the rest of the Irish squad, it was a tough pill to swallow.
“We weren’t happy losing two on the trot, that’s for sure. We didn’t lose many games generally, not least two back-to-back. Maybe we did feel that our time had come, that we’d find it difficult to recapture what we had”.
Kernaghan got 20 minutes in the Euro ’96 play-off against a stylish Dutch outfit at Anfield and it proved to be his final competitive appearance in an Irish shirt. The Charlton era ended with a whimper, a heavy-legged Ireland dismantled, almost embarrassingly so, by a ruthless crop of energetic youngsters. Though the final nail came on Merseyside, the Austrian defeats proved instrumental in the side’s failure to reach another major tournament. Could Austria court such influence over another Irish qualification process? Kernaghan has seen some of Ireland’s current campaign and is concerned by an over-reliance on Robbie Keane, especially ahead of such an important fixture.
“We struggle to score goals. Apart from Robbie, there’s no real out-and-out goalscorer and that’s been the case for quite a while. In general play they’ve been solid but they need other players to step up and take the burden away from Keane”.
Having allowed the Austrians dictate proceedings from early on back in ’95, Kernaghan believes the current Irish team must take the game to the hosts quickly and not sit back.
“Approaching the game with a positive outlook is key. If the players carry a win-or-bust mentality into the game, they might play with more freedom. They need to get Austria on the back-foot quickly. If they do win, it will be a massive psychological boost going forward”.
