LIAM MACKEY
SETTING the scene, as the great man took his seat on the stage, clips from Paul McGrath's remarkable performance against Italy at US '94 filled the big screen above his head.
Here was McGrath winning everything in the air, tearing up the ground to make a last-ditch saving tackle and putting the whole of his body in the way to deny Roberto Baggio and company even a share of the spoils on that memorable evening in New Jersey.
It was a highlights package which, appropriately, drew the kinds of 'oohs' and 'aahs' normally reserved for spectacular goals, and this from a capacity audience many of whom were just small kids when Paul was bestriding the world stage like a colossus.
What made his display even more remarkable that day was that McGrath had gone into the tournament nursing a serious shoulder problem. At first, Jack Charlton had been inclined to leave him at home, Paul recalled, but “a few tears” and even a modest improvement in the mobility of his arm was enough to convince the manager that he could ill-afford to leave even a less than 100 per cent battle-ready McGrath behind. And so here we were, all of fourteen years later, still glorying in the majestic evidence of that wise decision.
Of course, that was only one highlight among many; indeed, McGrath himself feels that he put in better 90 minute shifts in the course of his Ireland career. There was that historic Euro '88 defeat of England, for example. “Beating England meant we had the bragging rights for the next ten years at least,” he smiled. “After that, I didn't even want to play in the next game. I just thought: I'll leave it at that now.
“The thing is that England had great players,” he observed, “but we had a better team.”
Asked what went through his mind when, two years later, Dave O' Leary stepped up to take that decisive penalty against Romania in Genoa, McGrath quipped: “Sit back down.”
In fact, he says he was delighted to see his old friend O' Leary complete his international rehabilitation after a long time in exile under Charlton. “Jack hadn't done him any favours,” said Paul, “so, for me, there was only one person who could have taken that penalty that day.”
And would Paul McGrath have stepped up had the need arisen in the shoot-out?
“No, I wouldn't,” came the instant reply. “My knee. I could always blame my knee.”
