Spolier alert: this is terribly boring*:
It’s not that long since there was genuine debate about Robbie Keane’s merits as an Irish international. His supposed whining, an unsupported accusation that he only scored in friendlies or against lowly opposition, a stuttering club career and a working class Dublin accent were all served up as criticisms of the striker. However, as broken records became smashed records and previous high water marks faded into the distance, there is no longer a sane argument to be constructed about Keane flattering to deceive. He is an unquestionable phenomenon, with very few global peers in the history of football.
So, rather than ranting and raving about Keane’s importance to Ireland, this is a discussion on those he has played with. There have been 24 players fortunate enough to play up front for Ireland alongside the great man. A few managed only a handful of friendly appearances. Others played for long enough to build up a decent rapport. None came close to replicating Keane’s achievements in Ireland. All will be ranked subjectively (and pointlessly) based on each player’s international career in its entirety. Club careers are only factored in to separate players, or to conveniently add weighting to personal prejudices.
Robbie’s strike partners fall into six broad success groupings:
Group 1: The fortunate to be capped
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Jason Byrne. The family connection isn’t enough to keep him off the bottom. Only two caps, one of which lasted a few seconds. He seems to have been more impressive in his second substitute appearance against Chile but 21 minutes in friendlies represents a distinctly underwhelming international career.
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Dominic Foley was my first choice to be bottom of this list. Having realised he scored twice in 6 games, I was sufficiently convinced to elevate him one spot. Reading that he had 2 minutes of competitive action (at home to Estonia in a World Cup Qualifier) helped his cause further.
Foley never looked like breaking into Irish squads on a regular basis. He was tall but not really an aerial threat. He wasn’t particularly quick, was never a prolific scorer and the name Dominic didn’t really fit a professional footballer. All his caps came in 2000 when he managed 3 Nike Cup appearances, a couple of friendlies and that brief cameo off the bench when he replaced Internazionale’s Robert Keane. His club career took him to Greece, Portugal and Belgium after indifferent performances at Wolves and Watford.
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Alan Lee is the most capped of this bottom group of foils for Keane. He managed 10 forgettable appearances in an Irish shirt, including 4 competitive games. He threatened to become a fixture in the squad around 2003-2004 when he won 8 of his caps. Only 7 of the 24 players on this list never scored for Ireland. It’s not really surprising to read that Lee is one of those.
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Another non scorer is Cillian Sheridan. The fact he’s still playing at a decent level and may perhaps have a future in the Irish squad puts him ahead of Lee. He really hasn’t done anything of note for Ireland, but did manage to come off the bench and then get substituted in a friendly defeat to Argentina in 2010. 1 start, 3 caps.
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Who scored the goal that secured a second place finish in the 2004 Unity Cup played at The Valley in London? It was Graham Barrett of course. That was one of two memorable international goals from the great white hope out of Tallaght and Arsenal. Injuries slowed him down, denied him regular football and eventually forced him out of the game in his late 20s.
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Noel Hunt has 3 Irish caps, 2 of them coming in World Cup qualifiers. He came off the bench in Italy to help Ireland to a 1-1 draw and then was rewarded with a start against Montenegro in a subsequent qualifier. A scoreless draw in that game didn’t do much to advance his cause and he didn’t play for Ireland again.
Group 2: The Journey Men
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We’re now looking at players with somewhat credible domestic and international careers. Leon Best is bottom of this pile. He amassed 7 caps, 6 of them in 2009 when he was a regular contributor off the bench. Most of those appearances were in competitive games, none were memorable.
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That’s a similar profile to Caleb Folan who was the bench option just prior to Best. He is ranked slightly higher thanks to a decent performance away to Italy in a 1-1 draw in World Cup 2010 qualifying. He didn’t manage to do much else in his 7 starts, but was trusted with a starting berth away to Bulgaria on the back of that performance in Italy.
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The one player in this group who might well go on to have a more credible international career is Anthony Stokes. He doesn’t have much (or anything) to show for himself so far, 9 appearances without a goal, but he is young enough and talented enough to push past the journeyman label.
15. Stephen Elliott has 9 caps, 4 of them in competitive games. He only managed a single international goal but that was the winner in a 0-1 win over Cyprus in a qualifier for the 2006 World Cup. His club and international careers faded away from 2006 onwards when injuries interrupted his career with increasing frequency.
- Keith O’Neill had a curious international career. He had an unfortunate role in the concession of a late goal in Skopje that cost Ireland a Euro 2000 spot, slipping as Stavrevski heads home a crucial equaliser. It started much brighter with 4 goals in his first 4 starts, 3 friendlies at the end of the 1995/96 season and then an early goal away to Liechtenstein at the start of France 98 qualifying. That was an impressive tally from a natural winger who only occasionally featured up front. Like many others on this list, injuries soon began to plague him and he dropped off the radar completely after that slip against Macedonia.
There are a few players who are still plugging away at club level and presumably haven’t given up hope of further appearances (I’m assuming Leon Best doesn’t count himself in this category). 13. Conor Sammon has 9 caps without a goal and not much to show for his efforts apart from the probably unfair derision of the Irish support. Sammon isn’t a world beater but was nowhere near as bad a player as some made out. 12. Daryl Murphy managed 13 caps without doing any better and without suffering the same abuse.
- Andy Keogh’s days in a green shirt are probably behind him despite a strong start to his Perth Glory career. It might be argued that he suffered a little from his supposed versatility but in reality Keogh wasn’t particularly effective in any position. That didn’t stop him winning 30 caps and an underwhelming 2 goals. One of those came against Germany in the 1-6 humiliation in 2012. It’s a damning indictment of all the other journeymen that Keogh tops this particular pile.
Group 3: The Established Internationals
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At one point it all looked bright for Simon Cox and Ireland. He teamed up superbly with Robbie Keane in Macedonia in 2011 and followed that up with a man-of-the-match performance at home to Armenia a few months later. Then Trapattoni came up with the idea of deploying Cox as a slow, awkward left winger and he plodded around for the rest of his international career earning 30 caps but never looking as threatening again. Cox has 4 international goals to his name, none of them in European or World Cup campaigns.
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Ireland’s top scorer in Euro 2004 qualifying was, astonishingly, Gary Doherty. A header in Moscow and then goals home and away to Georgia secured that honour for the elegant striker. He got his only other international goal in a friendly against USA in that same timeframe. Then a bad leg break caused his career at Spurs to stutter and never really looked as threatening again, though he carved out a very decent club career for himself.
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Neither Cox nor Doherty managed the sort of sustained impact that David Connolly achieved. The much-travelled striker probably owes the early end of his international career to the emergence of Robbie Keane but for a while it looked like Connolly would be the man to break all Irish records. He had 6 international goals by the age of 20 but his opportunities and goals dried up as soon as Keane emerged on the scene. Connolly didn’t help himself, most memorably when getting sent off in a play-off tie in Belgium.
He managed to regain his place in the team around the time of World Cup 2002 qualifying when he was a regular strike partner for Keane, right up to the play-off in Iran. He was still a factor in the finals, playing 40 minutes against Spain and missing a penalty in the shoot-out. A couple more appearances followed in McCarthy’s next campaign but the goals had long since dried up and he was jettisoned by Staunton who never included him in a squad, despite some respectable performances in England’s second tier.
Group 4: The Fruitful Partnerships
Robbie has been on the international scene for long enough to play alongside a whole host of other forwards but only 6 players really struck up lengthy or meaningful partnerships with him at international level.
- It’s not easy being enthusiastic about Jon Walters but the Stoke striker has been a regular feature of the Irish attack for the past 3 years, though frequently deployed on the wing. He is not so much a strike partner for Keane, as a player who is selected to hassle people in much the same area of the pitch that Keane occupies.
It began a little more excitingly with Walters, who impressed in a couple of appearances before starting the Euro 2012 play off in Estonia, contributing a goal and plenty in open play. That battering ram bundle of energy has slowed considerably since, adopting a more defensive and orthodox style of play which renders him less effective and very ordinary.
He has managed to make himself almost indispensable to Stoke under a couple of managers, and is clearly valued for his workrate, his defensive work at set pieces and his reliable but underwhelming output. That’s sadly sufficient to move him ahead of all but 6 of the players who have graced the same turf as Robbie.
- The player who many expected to have taken Keane’s place by now is Shane Long but he can’t quite even manage to start regularly enough to play with Keane. Long has plenty of pace and his “honesty of effort” means it’s little surprise that John Giles drools over his performances. But he is frequently let down by wayward shooting, which seems to betray a lack of confidence, and poor decision making, which seems to betray a lack of footballing nous.
Long has been something of a darling of the Irish public and media despite a stuttering career at both club and international level. He is clearly valued highly enough by EPL managers that he has been bought for significant fees on 3 occasions. But the converse of that is that EPL clubs have cashed in on him 3 times, perhaps mindful of the fact he hasn’t managed to score in double figures in the EPL yet, and only achieved this once at any level in his career, in his spectacular promotion chasing season at Reading.
At international level, the trend has been similar to his club career. On (rare) occasions he has looked unplayable (as in impossible to mark) with his pace, his high work-rate and an aerial threat that means he is an attacking presence right across the frontline. On other occasions he has looked unplayable (as in impossible to select) when he runs down blind alleys, concedes too many free kicks and can’t seem to link the play with anyone.
That may be a harsh assessment of Long’s career to date, but it has certainly been characterised more by potential, and by threatening attributes, than a consistency approaching anything others on this list have managed. His relevance in an international context thus far is probably summed up in his total of goals in competitive matches so far: 1. A single goal against Russia in a very promising cameo off the bench is not much of a return from 16 competitive appearances (10 from the bench).
- There was less love for Clinton Morrison when he was bringing his all-action style to the Irish attack, and it’s hard to understand objectively why he fell off the scene so rapidly. His club career was a little less spectacular and was mostly based in the Championship where he was a regular scorer. He hit double figures at that level for 5 consecutive seasons and the last 4 of those came after he won his last Irish cap. Hitting a dozen goals in England’s second tier is far from extraordinary but it displayed a level of consistency that probably merited further international recognition.
When he did play for Ireland, Morrison was consistently effective. He scored on his debut (a 2-2 friendly draw with Croatia in 2001) and went straight into the squad for the remainder of World Cup 2002 qualifying, playing in the away play-off against Iran but not featuring from the bench in the finals themselves. He went on to feature in Euro 2004 qualifying, scoring in a defeat to Russia and then was more involved in World Cup 2006 qualifying under Brian Kerr when he scored 3 times, equalling Robbie Keane’s record over those games.
By the time Steve Staunton took over the Irish job, Morrison had 9 goals in 33 appearances, a very healthy strike rate. 4 of those goals came in his 15 appearances in qualifying campaigns, again a useful percentage that suggested he was worth keeping around the squad. His last appearance came in the nadir away to Cyprus and he was never selected for an Irish team again after that defeat. He deserved a better ending for his service to Ireland than that.
- It says much about Robbie’s extraordinary consistency and longevity that Kevin Doyle’s senior debut came 8 years after Keane’s and yet he has looked washed up long before Keane’s effectiveness has expired. Doyle had a promising underage international career and won a starting role in the senior team during Euro 2008 qualifying when he scored 4 times in 8 appearances. He was firmly established by World Cup 2010 qualifying under Trapattoni, managed 2 goals and was FAI Player of the Year in 2009 and 2010. There were those in the media, notably RTÉ, who argued that Doyle was the type of classy player that Keane had never matured into.
A sudden decline began during Euro 2012 qualifying when he seemed to lose pace, confidence and his touch. At some stage, someone who has his ear appeared to convince Doyle that his real calling was not as a limited but effective striker, but rather he’d be better spending his afternoons and evenings competing desperately to flick on throw-ins to nobody in particular and losing wrestling matches against stronger defenders in non-dangerous areas. He didn’t lose his place in the team until the third game of the finals tournament and he ended up drifting slowly but inexorably out of the manager’s plans until finally he wasn’t even in the extended squad any longer.
As blunt and ineffective as Doyle looked in recent years, it’s worth remembering that he was once a dangerous striker. He was never a prolific marksman for Wolves, but they weren’t prolific scorers, but he could convert chances on the ground and in the air and was good enough to attract attention away from Keane in a way that the likes of Conor Sammon could never achieve.
Group 5: The Guys Who Were Past It
- Tony Cascarino must have been as irritating to play against as he is to listen to on the radio. A snarling, annoying man seemingly devoid of talent and intellect but somehow picking up jobs with the likes of Marseille, Celtic and Today FM.
His tally of 19 international goals was a fine return for Irish football in those days and was only one short of Frank Stapleton’s haul which was long the benchmark for Irish strikers until Quinn edged past it and then Robbie came along. He did become Ireland’s most capped player for a period of time and was unlucky that his time to shine at a major tournament (USA 94 with Quinn injured) was ruined by an untimely injury of his own.
Most of Cascarino’s goals and noteworthy performances pre-dated the emergence of Keane which keeps him out of the top two. He didn’t score in the last couple of years of his career, and really only came off the bench to give Niall Quinn a rest. He did manage to force his way into the team for the Euro 2000 play-offs against Turkey, starting the home leg (1-1) at the expense of David Connolly (Quinn was suspended) and then coming off the bench in a desperate bid to score in Turkey when he played alongside Quinn and Connolly for a final 15 minutes. His international career ended that night in some controversy with a flurry of punches involving Cascarino, Hakan Sukur, some other Turkish players, some Turkish supporters and one or two Turkish policemen.
Group 6: The Stars
And then there were two.
- The most celebrated player on this list is certainly Damien Duff and, being honest that works against him in this running order. Duff was certainly an excellent player at both club and international level, but arguably received more praise than his international contributions warranted.
Starting with the positives, of which there are many: Duff shared with Keane the unusual fame of being a prodigious underage talent with Ireland. There aren’t many household name Irish players in their teens but both Keane and Duff were celebrated for their talents long before they were top-flight regulars. He made his senior debut in a (rare) away friendly against Czech in 1998 and immediately became a starter in the team for Euro 2000 qualifying. His initial performances were promising, without being breathtaking and he had dropped to the substitute’s bench by the time of the Euro 2000 play offs against Turkey.
World Cup 2002 qualifying continued in the same vein with Duff coming off the bench in most matches but McAteer and Kilbane were the regulars in that side on the wings and Keane and Quinn had the two striker positions nailed down. He was introduced for Robbie Keane in the home draw with Portugal which was the beginning of McCarthy’s discovery of Duff’s effectiveness in a central attacking role. The memorable home win over the Dutch in the final game of that qualifying group saw Duff playing with Keane, Quinn finally succumbing to the challenge from the younger generation and dropping to the bench.
Injury forced Duff out of the playoffs against Iran but he was back in the fold by the time of the finals tournament, starting all the games, scoring against Saudi Arabia, winning a (dubious) penalty against Spain and being voted Ireland’s player of the tournament.
His excellent form continued through Euro 2004 qualifying when he scored against Russia and Geogia and earned his big move to Chelsea on the back of equally impressive club form. He is undoubtedly still heartbroken at the FAI’s failure to hold its annual awards ceremony for 2003 when he would have been favourite to add to his 2002 gong but can console himself with club honours for that stellar period of his career.
Duff’s effectiveness suffered, along with everyone else, under Staunton’s management. While he was an automatic starter (and the first name on the team sheet in clichéd parlance, but probably in reality too) he was not able to lift Ireland out of mediocrity and looked a disillusioned figure wondering why Alan O’Brien was standing over on the other flank.
Trapattoni placed a great deal of emphasis on the attacking threat from his wingers and immediately named and entrusted Duff and McGeady with critical creative roles. The stability of a stay-at-home full back behind Duff offered him a little more freedom to make his mark, but also brought with it some double defensive attention that both Irish wingers struggled to overcome during the Italian manager’s regime. The results were immediately better and Duff was a mainstay of another comparatively successful period for Irish football. His international career ended in the disappointment of Euro 2012, a sour note to finish.
Duff was unquestionably the most gifted player to play alongside Robbie Keane.e He
He was part of a Chelsea team that had an embarrassment of riches at its disposal but still found room for Duff, for a while anyway. In Ireland he has always been heralded as an unimpeachable star, a proven talent who consistently delivered in the green shirt. 3 competitive international goals (8 in total) is a very modest total for a career with Duff’s longevity. It would be a poor total for a midfielder; it’s a very poor total for a player who was often deployed as a centre forward. His last competitive goal for Ireland came against Russia in 2003, a full 9 years before he retired. There is more to football than scoring goals, and there was certainly more to Duff’s game but he wasn’t a particularly good striker of a ball which affected his contributions in setting up goals too. Duff was a wonderful talent and an excellent player but it was a talent somewhat unfulfilled.
- It’s almost impossible to divorce the peddler of various cheap products, the Mother Theresa persona, the MBE, the Charlie Chawke cheerleader, the frankly offensively irritating assistant commentator Niall Quinn from Niall Quinn the footballer.
But if you move past the personality, you find a player who was an integral part of the Irish team for a very long time, who built up an excellent rapport with Robbie Keane and who performed consistently in an Irish shirt over the course of that long career.
Like every other Irish striker outwith Robbie himself, Quinn was not a prolific scorer. Unlike most others on this list, he was consistent over a prolonged period however. His 21 international goals spanned 14 years, 14 of them came in competitive games. He scored in Italia 90 and had a vital assist for Keane in World Cup 2002. He has scored against the Netherlands and England in competitive games – that doesn’t sound like an extraordinary achievement (and in truth it’s not), but it compares favourably to everyone else on this list.
Quinn’s introduction to the Irish team was prolonged. He made his debut in 1986, starting ahead of Stapleton against Czechoslovakia at the start of Charlton’s reign. He was in and out of the Irish team for a couple of years, appearing for the last half hour of Ireland’s win over England at Euro 88 but when Stapleton was being replaced in the Irish team for Italia 90 qualifying it was Tony Cascarino who took over first.
Quinn got his chance off the bench in Italia 90, scoring against the Dutch and he shared duties with Cascarino for the next couple of years before finally becoming the primary striker for USA 94 qualifying. A knee injury cost him a playing role at that tournament but he did hint at the nightmare that was to come by accepting a role on RTÉ’s commentary team instead.
And his international career continued in the same vein. Often a starter but frequently displaced by a younger talent before forcing his way back in for more important games. He certainly built up an understanding with Keane which helped Quinn earn game time, but even on his own he remained a regular goal threat, surpassing the Givens/Aldridge/Cascarino/Stapleton totals with a stooping header against Cyprus in the final match of the regular World Cup 2002 qualifying campaign.
Quinn wasn’t blessed with extraordinary footballing ability, and despite his goals he’s a long way off being Ireland’s second best striker of all time. But Robbie Keane hasn’t played with many top class strikers for Ireland and Quinn did enough in his appearances to make a sustained, effective contribution to Irish international football.
*Christ, I wish I hadn’t started writing that.