“He’s left a legacy.”
Eamon Dunphy’s reaction to the news that Stephen Kenny will no longer be the Republic of Ireland manager, has surprised everyone.
The former RTE pundit is well known for his harsh analysis, and often over-the-top views on players, management, and staff, particularly that of the Ireland team.
Jack Charlton, who lead Ireland to unprecedented success at World Cups was often in the firing line from the very opinionated commentator, so many were expecting him to really let the hands go when it came summarising Kenny’s reign in charge.
Eamon Dunphy’s reaction to Stephen Kenny’s departure has surprised everyone.
Kenny has endured a tough time in the hot seat, losing most of his matches, failing to qualify for any major tournament, and ultimately not giving the fans much to sing about, however, speaking on Morning Ireland, Dunphy gave a rather surprising take on the matter.
“I think he’ll be a loss to the Irish game. He has the right values, decent guy, he inherited literally nothing and he had to play a lot of very young players all at the same time.
“He’s a man of principle, he’s left a legacy. He has nothing to be ashamed of and is respected by the players and I think by the public as well.
“I hope he does what he wants to do, he could go anywhere in the League of Ireland. I’d like to see him working with the FAI, working with young players.”
Eamon Dunphy highlights Ireland’s real problem and it wasn’t the management.
Dunphy believes that the problem in Ireland at the moment isn’t poor managers, but the simple fact that they talent pool just isn’t there at the moment.
“We have a problem, we’re not producing players at all now,” he continued.
“If you look at the comparison with rugby there’s a whole stream of players the last 10-15 years that have come through the college system inspired by the success of Johnny Sexton and Ronan O’Gara, people like that. We don’t have that.
“When you think that the last game of Martin O’Neill’s tenure, we lost 5-1 at home to a pretty ordinary Denmark team in the Aviva, so he [Kenny] inherited nothing.”
Related links:
- James McClean ‘calls it how he sees it’ with opinion on current Ireland squad
- Richard Dunne and Damien Delaney take issue with Stephen Kenny’s programme notes
- “A great privilege” Stephen Kenny almost breaks down during emotional post-match interview
