It was very nice to be able to welcome Keith Fahey to the MNS studio this week.
Having secured promotion to the Premier League in England next season with Birmingham City, Keith is enjoying some well deserved R&R back in Dublin and he took in two League of Ireland matches over the weekend - St Pat's versus Sligo Rovers and Shamrock Rovers at home to Bohemians.
As a Tallaght man, Keith joins a long line of players from that area who hopefully will come back some day to play for the Hoops in their new home. It would be a great spine to any team.
Richard Dunne and Graham Gartland in defence, Keith in midfield, with Robbie Keane spearheading the attack. All Tallaght natives, and all doing well in England and Scotland. I tried to get Keith to promise to play for Rovers in the future but he was non-committal. Although he did tell me that the Rovers fans were nice to him on Saturday night at Tallaght Stadium, so who knows.
I was working at the 3 Irish Open over from Thursday to Sunday so I didn't get a chance to go to any games last weekend, but one thing that struck me was the quality of some of the goals on show.
Galway United got in on the act with a brilliant strike from Jay O'Shea and another from Cian McBrien. They've obviously been taking their Weetabix at Terryland Park over the last week or so. Keith thought O'Shea’s strike was quite similar to Mark Rossiter’s goal for Bohemians last season, which was a contender for Goal of the Season come the end of the campaign. I'd be surprised if O'Shea's isn't a contender as well.
Add Alan Cawley's piledriver for St Pat's against Sligo into the mix, and you've another eye-catching strike to consider for at least May Goal of the Month.
The one thing that struck me about all three goals is that they were scored into nets with very few supporters behind the goals (if any in some cases). What a pity.
These are the sort of goals that end up in end of season compilations for the Sports Awards of the Year and for the person with a passing interest, they just see the ball flying into a net with no fans around. It's a shame, but in most grounds the fans congregate in the main stand, and the last area of the stadium to fill up is the one where the goals go in. Behind the goals.
How much more spectacular would the goals look if the stands were packed with fans going crazy when the 25-yarder whizzes into the top corner?
When we retired to the pub after the programme, the chat about how to get more people coming to matches here went on for quite a while. I've said here before, that I think the facilities need to be improved. Give people a proper stadium to come to with decent toilets, a place where they can buy food and drink, and a well-lit ground, and it's half the battle. Certainly 30% of the battle.
Johnny Mc was disappointed that more Pat's fans weren't turning out when their team really needs them. It's grand being a fair weather fan and turning up for big European games and so on, but where are those fans now, when the club is struggling for results, and the players need as much encouragement as the supporters can muster?
Keith and Johnny were making the point that players can be lifted by the atmosphere, but all too often in the league here the lack of numbers in the stands make for eerie silences, or at least a situation where supporters making negative comments can be heard, unlike in the bigger grounds in the UK, where the man or woman shouting abuse at a player or manager is drowned out by the overall noise being created.
Our editor - Brummie Steve - was in his element meeting a real live Birmingham City player and actually having the opportunity to sit across a table from him and share a packet of dry roasted peanuts.
I swear his flat accent became more Birminghamified as he swapped stories with Keith about other players at St Andrews. (What do you mean there's no such word as Birminghamified?).
I think Steve fancies himself and his beloved Blues as a team of hard men who'll show the nancy boys of the Premier League a thing or two next season, but he was shocked to hear that one well known City player has his fake tan sprayed on every week. More Babycham than Irn-Bru I would have thought. Watch out for Birmingham next season and look for the bronzed one. Then you'll know who I'm talking about. (It's not Keith by the way!)
We featured a couple of red card decisions on this weeks show that fall into the very harsh category. Chris Turner's double yellow turns into red in the Louth derby is a case in point. The referee got it wrong, and it would be nice to think that the Dundlak man won't suffer a suspension at the very least.
Likewise, Derry's Mark McCrystal seemed harshly dealt with in the match against Cork City. That brings me to Stephen O'Donnell's red card for getting lippy with the referee's assistant. A straight red for that offence, but how often have you seen the likes of Wayne Rooney do the exact same thing in the shirt of Manchester United and receive no sanction whatsoever?
You don't have to be an expert lip reader to see Rooney, and countless others, using foul language at a linesman and get away with it. Perhaps a warning and then a red if the abuse continues would be a more reasonable approach?
I'm not condoning verbal abuse of officials, but as Dave Barry said in our pre-programme meeting, when a fourth official is plonked between two managers during a tense match and debateable decisions are being made it's natural for a manager to want to vent his spleen at the nearest official.
It's usually the case that this ends up being the fourth official, and often that results in the manager sitting in the stand and facing a four-match ban. Keith made the point that the fourth officials in England seem to take a much more pragmatic approach to that kind of reaction from the two benches and maybe our officials need to chill out a bit about managers reacting, and appreciate what's at stake.
You'll notice that I haven't mentioned Shamrock Rovers' last-gasp win over Bohemians yet. But I can't let the weekend pass without saying well done to Gary Twigg, the Soccer Writers' Association of Ireland Player of the Month. Ten goals in 12 games is a cracking return, and things remain on the up for Rovers. Maybe it's the curse of the pink jerseys!
We got an amazing response to Damien's head-to-head with Tony last week, and apologies for not getting to the fanscope section this week, but we had a very full show, and the interview with Tom Coughlan in Cork took slightly longer than expected. All your emails are read and all suggestions are considered, if not always acted upon, so keep the emails coming in to us at mns@rte.ie.
Incidentally, I hope Tom Coughlan can come to some arrangement with the Revenue. The league needs a vibrant Cork City and it's a brilliant place to go to a match. Time will tell whether things can be sorted out, but with the club currently top of the table, the sooner it can be put to bed and we can concentrate on the fine job Paul Doolin seems to be doing, the better.
