Heimir Hallgrimsson wants Ireland to flip mentality and take fight to opposition

By Damian Spellman, PA

Heimir Hallgrimsson has joked he may ask Fifa if Ireland can play the second half of matches first after a challenging Nations League double-header.

Hallgrimsson’s side trailed 1-0 in Finland on Thursday before fighting back to win 2-1, and somehow managed to survive a first-half onslaught in Greece on Sunday before responding only to shoot themselves in the foot at the end.

The Icelander, who will now turn his attention to next month’s fixtures against Finland and England, admitted after the 2-0 defeat in Athens that his side only seemed to start playing as it could when they had nothing to lose.

Asked how he could remedy that, Hallgrimsson said with a smile: “That is now our task, and we said it to the players in the dressing room after the game. We need to find that, what are we doing differently when we are down.

“We need to fight to get back in the game. Why can’t we just start with that mentality? I said, maybe as a joke, we should call Fifa and start playing the second half first, and the first half second.

“It’s something psychological, for sure. I’ve talked a lot about confidence. Once we have spells in game like now, I think we grow much when we show them the good things. Of course, the bad things we need to correct.”

Hallgrimsson’s philosophy is in stark contrast to that of predecessor Stephen Kenny, who wanted to play a more expansive brand of football than that to which the nation had become used.

The problem was that even though there were encouraging signs at times, results eluded Kenny’s team – they won just six of 29 competitive games under him.

His successor has made no bones about basing his blueprint on Irish football’s traditional strengths of organisation, commitment and industry first before layering on the creativity he believes he has at his disposal.

Defender Dara O’Shea, who played his part in a concerted rearguard action during a challenging first half in Greece before second-half goals from Tasos Bakasetas and Petros Mantalos – following a mistake by the otherwise excellent Caoimhin Kelleher – secured victory for the hosts, admits it will take time to adapt to the 57-year-old’s methods.

O’Shea said: “Obviously he knows our strengths and he has kind of simplified our game into a game that we need to get the ball in the opposition half and that’s where we can do our damage.

“We’ve got some great attacking players who are playing at high levels in the UK and abroad and we want to give them the ball and let them do their thing.

“Obviously as a nation, we’re a hard-working nation. He’s trying to keep that going, drilling it into us.

“The way he wants us to play is different to the way we’ve played in the last couple of years, so obviously you’re going to say it’s going to take time, but we need to get results soon.”