Cathal Dervan, Editor
Troy Parrott deserves all the praise that is coming his way for one of the great Lansdowne Road goals on Thursday night, a goal born of individual brilliance, stunning creativity and sheer cheek. The quality of the run alone deserves headlines of its own.
He probably deserved a hat-trick on the night and Ireland deserved a win but those second-half substitutions and tactical naivety on and off the field when 2-0 up in a game again came back to haunt this Irish set-up. More of that anon.
Let’s consider the Troy goal for a second. Firstly, it was old school and long ball in its initiation, an actual kick forward from a goalkeeper rather than a sideways pass. Most great Aviva goals start that way as Shane Long will tell you.
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And so it begins..
Secondly, the flick from Adam Idah just in front of the halfway line was superb. He, as much as Parrott, made a point to the manager and the crowd against Austria. That flick alone should guarantee his starting role for many games to come.
Now we get to Troy. This goal wasn’t created last night. It was created when Troy was just a kid with an uncanny ability to score goals and dominate defenders back in the days when the great Belvedere Football Club provided his field of dreams.
I will bet any money that Troy Parrott scored that exact goal on the training pitches with Belvo, in DDSL matches with Belvo, on the training ground with Spurs when he first went to London.
It is a goalscorer’s dream goal, one they will have got away with when they were the best kid in the class so to speak, one they can only pull off at the highest level even if they are blessed with genius.
Troy Parrott is blessed with a genius style talent. We’ve known that for years but football, cruel business that it is, and life hasn’t given him the easiest route to the goal of a lifetime at the Aviva Stadium or a World Cup redemption performance in Budapest.
He has had to fight every inch of the way to get here. He has had to be brave when choosing first Holland and then Spain to resurrect his career. The irony of Spurs fans asking if they’d have him back on social media last night won’t be lost on the 24-year-old.
What Troy has also lacked, until Adam Idah sprung like a salmon last night, is real support in the Irish team to make the most of his ability to play off the cuff.
Against Kosovo a week earlier he was left isolated and alone up top, the tactics failing to give him any real support. When Adam Idah was replaced by Jason Molumby - and Liam Scales was sacrificed for Liam Kitching - in the 63rd minute last night, Ireland again lacked the foil that Troy needed.
Those strange substitution decisions and the lack of a real back-up for Parrott on the Irish bench are the real worries for Irish fans this morning.
For now, we should celebrate a brilliant Troy Parrott goal in a game that was there for the taking and thrown away once again.
Was it the greatest goal ever scored in Dublin 4? For those born this century probably yes, in terms of skills alone.
Shane Long’s strike against Germany was more valuable and just as memorable. Go back in time and we can add an Ashley Grimes wonder goal against Spain, Liam Brady’s stunning effort against Brazil and a certain Jason McAteer finish, for sheer importance, to that list.
Should we celebrate the goal and the player this morning? Absolutely. That Troy Parrott is one of our own should always be celebrated.
The international break will soon be over and normal footballing services will resume. Let’s Talk Football will also return, in the meantime, here’s a little something else.
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