Dunphy's always wrong

Last night when it was half time and 1-0 to England, Eamon Dunphy advised viewers the 2nd half was going to be a bore fest with no more goals and "they might as well just switch off and go down to the pub". In the end the game finished 2-2 after a great 2nd half of end to end football.


This was a classic example of Dunphy misjudging a game. If you wear your heart on your sleeve like he does, when you do go down, you go down in flames. His controversial and unpredictable traits are the only reason he's still on the panel. In fairness though RTE's A-team would probably be fairly dull without him.

I remember him telling Graeme Souness that he didn't know what he was talking about when it came to management. When Souness asked him to show him his medals with dagger eyes, Dunphy just shuffled and said "I've managed to stay alive for the past 60 years, baby". Well he mightn't have said "baby" but it sounds better so I'm keeping it in.

But it doesn't get away from the fact that the majority of the time when he opens his mouth on a live game he invariably gets it wrong. He famously said "Michel Platini has no bottle and he's not a great player" live on air in the buildup to the Euro 1984 championships. France went on to win that with Platini scoring 9 goals winning not just the golden boot but also the player of the tournament. The trouble is you don't have to go that far back for even crazier statements.

All the same though he's a clever fella is Eamon. He's got the brains of at least three footballers. He has to be clever sitting beside Johnny Giles and Liam Brady, two of all the all time true great Irish players with distinguished careers and of course Eamon, who played with Millwall. Half the time though all he wants to do is have a bit of a rant over whatever happens to be on his mind at that particular time, which is something everybody does I suppose... Just not on telly. Who can forget the "this country is a kip" rant.

When all is said and done I have a love hate relationship with Eamon. And whenever he does pack the analysis in I reckon I'll pine for him to come back. That's not to say Didi Hamann and Richie Sadlier are doing a bad job as the B-Team - I'm enjoying them so far. But in the meantime I'm gonna just keep slagging Dunphy.