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The truth is Trapatoni made the right changes that brought us a well deserved draw. There is no such thing as an Italian team that's complete rubbish. Young Caleb Folan set up the winning goal and the best chance of the game, credit where credit is due. Canavarro is not finished but rather did the work of two players up until he tired towards  the end and made some silly tackles and finally we hired Mr. Trapatoni to take us to the World Cup in South Africa and only consistently getting good results will do that. 

A report in the Irish Independent in the last few days  suggested that Dunphy and Co. had become a caricature of themselves and that Bill O'Herlihy had to carry some of the blame for his inability to stand up and behave correctly while all around him trotted out cliches and insults ad nauseum.  English pundits analyzing England's games have been accused (often rightly so) of being too inoffensive and mild but somehow in the face of what was paraded on RTE as in depth analysis on last Wednesday night, the fair, honest, albeit mild mannered antics of British football experts seems almost preferable. 

Congratulations are in order for the Irish team and Mr. Trapatoni for making the best out of the situation against a 10 man Italian team, in Italy, and grabbing what was certainly a valuable point. For Dunphy and Co. I doubt they will ever recover the form which inspired the hilarious early Apres Match sketches. Looks like the pundits have started to believe their own parodies. As  Ian Mallon in the Irish Independent so correctly remarked there's no need to caricature what already is a caricature.