Greatest Irish Players?

[Hillbilly]

http://supplements.independent.ie/?xml=Legends_football_magazineV3#folio=1

Deeply flawed... God is only number 3. That said, it's hard to argue against 1 & 2. Also, Cascarino is on the list but not Eamonn Deacy. Fair number of players with Villa links.

[lovejoy]

Best
Brady
Kearney
McGrath

[LeeB]

Nobody is telling me Roy Keane was better than Macca, what a load of bollocks.

I never saw Giles play.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Best
Brady
Kearney
McGrath

Its Republic of Ireland not Northern Ireland - So the likes of Best, Blanchflower, Jennings, Doherty etc not included.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

Nobody is telling me Roy Keane was better than Macca, what a load of bollocks.

I never saw Giles play.

Giles was a dirty bastard. A dirty cheating Leeds bastard and shouldn't even be in the top 20.

[nigel]

Nobody is telling me Roy Keane was better than Macca, what a load of bollocks.

I never saw Giles play.

Giles was a dirty bastard. A dirty cheating Leeds bastard and shouldn't even be in the top 20.

Apart from that, though, he was a lovely player 

Keane at n.o. 1 ?

I'd probably go with: McGrath (dispite Villa link), Brady, Giles

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

As I say Giles was a dirty bastard. A dirty cheating Leeds bastard and shouldn't even be in the top 20.

Stan Bowles on Giles.
"Being tackled by Chopper Harris was like being hit by a fucking great lorry. Funnily enough though, I never saw him as a dirty player. Now Johnny Giles from Leeds, he was a sly bastard. He’d wait ‘til the ball had gone and the ref had turned his back. Then he’d kick you one. Everyone would be following the ball so he usually got away with it."

Giles on George Best.
George Best, never a team-mate of Giles at Old Trafford, found himself on the end of his rough treatment during the 1970 FA Cup semi-final replay at Villa Park. However, it wasn’t matters on the pitch which fuelled Giles’s desire to teach the Manchester United star a very painful lesson.
“When we got to the ground, we found Georgie had been caught with one of the maids in the bedroom,” he says.
“This really infuriated me. George was the best, absolute genius. His womanising was to our benefit. But I thought Georgie was really letting down the game. I was raging with Georgie so I tried to kick him and said, You’re supposed to be a fucking professional’. And, of course, Georgie being Georgie misunderstood it and rubbed his fingers together as if to say, I have loads of money’. This made me madder still and so I really kicked him this time, ripping his socks and leaving him on the ground.”

Giles on Keegan.
Well Keegan was quite an emotional lad and he was in one of his moods that day. He'd been involved in a couple of tackles round the edge of the box. The ball broke loose between us, and I tried to shield it when he came in. And yeah I admit it, I swung a punch and caught him. The referee let me off with it...
Me and Billy Bremner had this thing where we'd pass trouble on to each other. So Billy put in a few tackles on Keegan and was giving him a bit of the verbals. He must have hit a raw nerve because suddenly Keegan started punching him! Of course the two of them were sent off, but afterwards a lot of people said I should have gone before that. Which was a legitimate point.

[levico]

How can Stan Staunton be at number 28 with 102 Irish caps?

[Chico Hamilton III]

How can Stan Staunton be at number 28 with 102 Irish caps?

Do you reckon his miserable managerial stint over there has affected how he is viewed?

Wonder how accurate some of the stats are in this article - I'm pretty sure that Don Givens played more than 36 games for Ireland?

[Irish villain]

How can Stan Staunton be at number 28 with 102 Irish caps?

Do you reckon his miserable managerial stint over there has affected how he is viewed?

Stan's reputation took a real knock because his time as manager was such an unmitigated disaster. I thought he should have been higher.

As for Giles, he's a God over here. He is like the nation's favourite uncle, almost like a sacred cow you can't criticise.

[Ger Regan]

How can Stan Staunton be at number 28 with 102 Irish caps?

Do you reckon his miserable managerial stint over there has affected how he is viewed?

Stan's reputation took a real knock because his time as manager was such an unmitigated disaster. I thought he should have been higher.

As for Giles, he's a God over here. He is like the nation's favourite uncle, almost like a sacred cow you can't criticise.

Also, in relation to Giles, a good portion of the reason he's at 2 could be to do with the fact of being manager in a time of great transition for the irish team. He, to an extent, laid the foundations for what Charlton achieved.

Also forms part of the punditry partnership dream team of him, Eamon Dunphy and Brady. Entertainment guaranteed. I remember Souness was a pundit for a while, and you could see him thinking "what the hell is going on here, this would never happen on sky or the bbc".

[Irish villain]

How can Stan Staunton be at number 28 with 102 Irish caps?

Do you reckon his miserable managerial stint over there has affected how he is viewed?

Stan's reputation took a real knock because his time as manager was such an unmitigated disaster. I thought he should have been higher.

As for Giles, he's a God over here. He is like the nation's favourite uncle, almost like a sacred cow you can't criticise.

Also, in relation to Giles, a good portion of the reason he's at 2 could be to do with the fact of being manager in a time of great transition for the irish team. He, to an extent, laid the foundations for what Charlton achieved.

Also forms part of the punditry partnership dream team of him, Eamon Dunphy and Brady. Entertainment guaranteed. I remember Souness was a pundit for a while, and you could see him thinking "what the hell is going on here, this would never happen on sky or the bbc".

I wasn't able to articulate that in my post but the 'A team', as they're known among my friends, are extremely entertaining and as Ger said Souness almost had a nervous break-down trying to cope with them!

[eamonn]

Most memorable was when RTE showed Garth Crooks interviewing Sven (in that way he has, the psychophantic sucking in of breath to lend gravitas to his question) after an England World Cup/Euros game to which Dunphy immediately quipped "I think that's the first time the BBC have show two men having sex before the watershed". Souness didn't know whether to wince or laugh his arse off.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Nobody is telling me Roy Keane was better than Macca, what a load of bollocks.

Indeed. Just to add, Keane wasn't fit to lace the boots of Brady.

[rutski]

a good article there, i probably agree with most, certainly the top 5. they are looking at club careers as well as irish careers, you couldnt get much better than roy keanes and what he achieved. if it were solely an opinion on ability alone you could mix it up a bit.