And so the bandwagon rolls on. A week after leading the Under-16s to the European title in Scotland, Brian Kerr was back at Tolka Park last night, sorting out his schedule for the summer. Last year it was Malaysia, this time, Cyprus in July. If he keeps this sort of thing up, his target in four years time may involve another long trip to the Far East, albeit with a somewhat older bunch of lads.
How many of last night's team will be involved with the senior team by then is open to question. Over the years, a seemingly endless list of teenagers have starred at this level only to drift into the senior wilderness, but if this performance was anything to go by half-a-dozen or more of this team would look to have very bright futures indeed.
A superb goal from Alan Quinn marked him out as one to keep an eye on, while Ryan Casey's contribution to the second, which was actually turned in by Greek captain Evangelos Nastos, was admirable enough. Barry Quinn in the centre of midfield was impressive throughout, and afterwards, along with Gary Doherty, Ger Crossley and Richard Dunne, the Dubliner was invited by Mick McCarthy to join up with the senior panel for the Paul McGrath testimonial. They may yet, the Irish boss indicated, be asked to stay on for the Mexican game as well.
Much had been made before the game of those who wouldn't play last night. Kerr, though, had insisted that the players who had served him well six weeks ago in Veria could complete the job last night and in the end he was proven right. The Greeks, he said afterwards, were better than most people here had expected: "for the first 15 minutes we played some fabulous stuff and the crowd couldn't understand why we weren't camped in their area but gradually they began to understand how good they really were."
True enough, that opening quarter of an hour, had been a little misleading. Quinn quickly established himself as the dominant force in the centre of the field while Richie Partridge and Ronnie O'Brien gave the visitors a succession of scares with the speed with which they carried the ball towards the area. But the Greeks looked solid in front of their own area and in the face of considerable attacking ingenuity they rarely looked likely to actually concede a goal.
The Irish certainly tried, though. Liam George, Thomas Heary and Barry Quinn all had shots on goal during the first half, with Quinn's effort, set up by O'Brien, forcing Greek goalkeeper Nickolaos Anastasopoulos into a fine save, high to his left. As the visitors began to make a greater impression on the contest in the second period it seemed that that might turn out to be a very important stop indeed.
Shortly before the break the Greeks had given some indication of the threat they could pose, Charalampos Teliadis attempting to lob Alex O'Reilly from the edge of the box and the West Ham goalkeeper doing remarkably well to push the ball wide. Before that they had surrendered a fair bit of possession with some careless final balls and been robbed of a good bit more by Keith Doyle and Heary.
As their desperation to level the tie grew, they became more adventurous and there were spells in the second half when their strikers were given the sort of time and space in the Irish box that really should have resulted in more than a couple of half-hearted shots on goal. Georgios Vakouftsis had a particularly good chance to open the scoring in the 69th minute when he escaped his marker but couldn't quite make the contact required by Nikolas Vekopoulas's corner from the right. Moments later a long throw by Vakouftsis seemed to catch the centre halves napping again and Ireland so long in control, suudenly appeared to be riding their luck.
They rode it well, though, and shortly afterwards they killed off the tie. Alan Quinn, on for the injured Stephen McPhail, started the move from the centre of midfield. A long ball out wide to the right set Richie Partridge on his way and the subsequent cross, though touched on by Liam George, was blasted home from beyond the left hand post by Quinn who had covered 50 yards to finish what he had started.
The Greeks, to be fair, reacted bravely the blow but now they were chasing something that was quite clearly beyond their grasp. They pushed forward hoping to salvage something but, with Partridge now playing in his more natural right-sided role they began to look very vulnerable to the counter attack.
The game was into injury time before the second goal came, Casey carrying the ball for some 30 yards down the left before sending a low cross that seemed to pose little threat for the visiting defenders. Apparently unaware, however, that he was under no particular pressure, Nastos lunged to intercept the ball, turning it from the edge of the six yard box just the wrong side of the near post to wrap up what was yet another good night for the Irish.
