Does the means justify the end?

Was last Friday night’s Republic of Ireland performance against Slovakia justified by the result?

No, because neither were good enough.

I’ve seen it so often in kids’ football, particularly schoolgirls, where a system is set up to produce results. There’s a big kid stuck at centre-half with the job of just wellying the ball forwards every time they get it and the rest of players chase in a pack.

It may well prove effective in terms of scoring a few goals and ultimately winning a few matches but is that really the way kids should be taught how to play?

No it’s not and managers who direct their players to play like that has a win-at-all-costs mentality and is trying to get results to swell their own egos with no regard to the proper development of children who want to play the game.

We all love football because it is a beautiful game. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t get a gooey tingle of utter satisfaction when they watch Barcelona carve teams open by playing in those little triangle formations all over the pitch, cutting opposing defenders and midfielders out of the game with slick, perfectly-weighted passes that just penetrate into space that never seemed to be there?

When you watch a player like Lionel Messi accelerate with the ball, using the inside and outside of both feet, swerving his hips, bending his knees, dropping his shoulders, twisting his pelvis making it look like he’s going one way before he so eloquently skips over the despairing lunges of frustrated and powerless opponents, continuing in his relentless pursuit of the goal without somersaulting to the ground like an Olympic gymnast.

It’s beautiful.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not naive enough to think all players can play like that and I know a huge part of football involves tactically combating the strengths of the opposition. But in the Republic of Ireland’s case we have players that can play.

We have players that can take the opposition on and create goal-scoring opportunities but they are so restricted by the defensive boundaries of Trapattoni’s set-up that they are prevented from playing the game the way which earned them the right to play in an Ireland jersey in the first place.

I accept the philosophy that if you don’t concede you won’t lose. But if you don’t score, you won’t win and while Trapattoni’s philosophy is producing good results away from home, you don’t reap the rewards of good away results if you don’t win your home games.

Surely there’s a case for being a bit more attack-minded when you have the advantage of playing on your home turf with the home fans in tow for a bit of extra support particularly when you have players who can actually play. And when you have players like Duff and McGeady who can do it and do it well.

Look at Shamrock Rovers exploits in Europe this year for example. The balance struck between being defensively sound was complimented by the ability to switch to 4-4-2 and attack in order to score the goals that allow progression.

It’s all well and good holding a bigger club to a draw but as Rovers showed this year, the ability to take them on, play to your own strengths and score the goals is what ultimately determines success.

Going into the European games, Rovers were a side who were used to having the ball and bossing possession. But in their defeats to Copenhagen they learned how to work effectively when you haven’t got the ball; and more importantly to do that with discipline.

As fans, we like watching players who put their bodies on the line and who work their backsides off when they haven’t got the ball. When they have the ball, we want to see some productivity.

As a player you’ll believe in the discipline of running your arse into the ground in order to prevent the other team scoring and to win back possession but you can only keep doing that for so long if the system isn’t producing results and the team isn’t given the freedom to try to score. It’s like running a marathon with no finish line and is no fun.

I shall digress somewhat because I believe this applies across the board.

For example, look at Donegal’s successes this year in Gaelic football. They won a Division two league title, the Ulster football Championship and made it to the All-Ireland senior football semi-final before Dublin finally put them to the sword.

Watching Donegal is not a pleasant way to pass one’s time and anyone who watched the first half against the Dubs will know exactly what I mean when I say it was horrible. It was so negative that it turned people against them.

People all over the country desperately wanted Dublin to win because it would have been a travesty for the sport had Donegal been successful with that style. It may well prove effective but it’s not what sports fans want to watch.

More to the point, it’s not what sports fans want to pay to watch.

We no longer live in an era where people have more money than sense and fans will vote with their feet and their pockets if they don’t like what they see. We pay money to be entertained not to be depressed. Life will do that for enough people without them have to pay for the privilege.

Sport and clubs will die if the fans don’t keep coming. There are plenty of League of Ireland teams who can vouch for that.

In professional sport, results count and I don’t deny that. If the Republic of Ireland qualify for Euro 2012 then none of us will even remember the home game against Slovakia because we won’t care for a while.

Success has a funny way of masking the route to the finish line. There is no baby without the pain but believe me, there needs to be a baby at the end of it.

If the Republic of Ireland don’t qualify for the European Championships, then Trapattoni’s style is not justified.