O'Neill relfects on Dublin Super Cup

The progression of Irish clubs in Europe is a far more accurate reflection on Irish football than the Dublin Super Cup.

The Dublin Super Cup had its fans, and it had it’s doubters. Michael O’Neill was quick to highlight the positives and negatives from having an Irish representative in a tournament which saw some of the biggest clubs in the world competing.

With Irish clubs doing so well in Europe this year, it could be argued that, to the general public, the standard of the Irish league is being somewhat over-praised thanks to certain European adventures and that the Dublin Super Cup exposed this home truth. Michael O’Neill argued against this theory. “Look, Pats have done terrifically well. You have about a week to prepare for these games, and for someone to just turn around and say you have to get forty people to Azerbaijan is not easy.”

“Given the financial restrains that the clubs are under, the clubs deserve an enormous amount of credit. In terms of the Super Cup, if you picked a representation of any league without their top three teams, for arguments sake, if you took the Premier League and said you can’t use any of Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal’s players, then people will say it’s not a fair representation of what the league is. That’s essentially what Damien was challenged with. While the results didn’t look good, it has to be taken into context in terms of how many of his nominated squad were made available to him in the end.”

“If you wanted a fair representation of the league, then perhaps it would have been better to play one club side in it, although it’s not really feasible because of the timing and nature of the competition.” Damien Richardson had the support of Michael O’Neill also. He stated: “It’s not really fair on Damien. I mean, I had told him that if I thought Dan Murray would benefit from playing in the tournament, he would. He didn’t know up until the last minute, and then all of a sudden, Ken Oman gets injured. I have a lot of sympathy for him because not only had he to pick a team, but he had to pick a squad. Given the timing of the competition, I’m not really sure what the best solution is, maybe it’s not to have an Airtricity side.”

O’Neill admitted that it was a tough decision to make, and that one must be careful about diluting the quality of sides playing in the tournament. “I don’t know if it would appeal to the Inter Milan’s and those teams to have an Arsenal U23’s side in the competition. They want to play against as high quality of opposition as possible. In terms of his own side, O’Neill admitted that: “It would be nice perhaps to award the champions with participation in the tournament. Again, it’s tough with the time scales involved and the European games which come into play. All avenues have to be explored. All clubs are operating with part time contracts, so maybe the highest placed team that didn’t qualify for Europe would participate.” O’Neill paused for a moment and then chuckled. “.. I suppose that’s what happened really.”

“I’m also not sure if one club could manage it. To field two different XI’s would be extremely difficult. We would have to field a few A Championship players because we have twenty two players, so for a single club like us to participate, we would need everyone fit and available.”