THERE are times when we all wished we had Séamus Coleman’s endurance.
Today marked day 125 of the hunt for a new Ireland head coach and most people are utterly jaded by the whole process.
If you could just fast forward to April now, when we are told Stephen Kenny’s successor will be unveiled, we would all take it.
Forget the Easter eggs, we can live without them for one year because we are all weary, beaten down by the saga which is taking close to two months longer than we were told it would.
Coleman? He just keeps coming back for more.
If, after suffering from a medial ligament injury at the end of last season, he had decided that playing on for his country was a hassle that he did not need, nobody would have blamed him.
But that was never after his agenda. Since returning to club action in December, he has played 90 minutes just once for Everton.
So, not unreasonably, John O’Shea checked on him towards the end of Saturday’s game against Belgium to check if he wanted to come off.
The answer was a firm no.
Surely, you thought, he would be rested for this, a second game in 72 hours too much to ask of a 35-year-old.
Nope. And, when Callum O’Dowda handed him what looked like an energy gel when he was introduced last night, the Donegal man chucked it back towards the dugout with apparent disdain.
We know Ireland has a captain of substance, let’s hope we will soon have a head coach cut from the same cloth with O’Shea’s interim reign now over, unless we have all been misled.
How will it been reflected upon? Probably like a free class with a substitute teacher supervising. It was not a waste of time but it was a filler between more serious business.
There were two debuts handed out with Sammie Szmodics starting both games and Finn Azaz introduced off the bench.
Neither could prevent three hours of football passing without an Ireland goal.
In fact, the only one scored was by a player who had been body-shamed by O’Shea’s technical adviser Brian Kerr when working as a co-commentator on a Liverpool game.
Kerr asked: “Hasn’t he the funniest shape of any player in the Premier League?
“He’s like a bloke you might see standing outside the pub on a Sunday morning with a bag with his boots in saying ‘I wonder where we’re playing today’ and a white van comes along and picks him up
“He’s a little chunky fella, about 5ft 3in, and wide at the hips. That’s probably being generous to him, saying he’s wide at the hips.
“And the jersey looks like it’s bet into him too. He’s a good player but he just looks so different from what players look like in the Premier League.”
CLASSIC GOAL
Xherdan Shaqiri – who now plies his trade for Chicago Fire – might be even less mobile than he was back then but he still knows how to bend a free-kick.
One of the regular failings of Kenny’s team was their concession of goals from outside the box.
This one was from a set-piece rather than open play but Bazunu did not cover himself in glory as Shaqiri curled one inside the far post, even if the Swiss players did a good job of leaving him unsighted until the last minute when they stepped away to create the space.
And the Southampton keeper’s poor clearance later on was picked up Granit Xhaka who rattled the post from distance.
Shaqiri’s goal aggravated the sense of injustice Dara O’Shea had felt at having a free-kick awarded against him when his Burnley team-mate Zeki Amdouni had gone down when there did not appear to be any contact.
Ireland huffed and puffed and created some chances but, once more, could not find the back of the net.
That may have pleased the Swiss-born Roberto Di Matteo who was among the crowd at the Aviva Stadium.
RUMOURS SWIRL
The mere sight of him chatting to FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill prompted the Association to clarify that he was not in the running for the Ireland vacancy.
Whether Hill himself will be around for the planned unveiling of Kenny’s permanent successor remains to be seen with his position up for discussion at an FAI board meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
The Englishman has been keeping an increasingly low profile since FAI president Paul Cooke said at an Oireachtas Committee hearing that his confidence in Hill had been dented.
That followed a damaging controversy which had seen Hill accept payments for holidays not taken, in contravention of the FAI’s employee handbook, insist he had nothing to do with it before eventually claiming that a throwaway remark had been interpreted as a request.
Presumably, his expected departure and appointment of a replacement will be sewn up quicker than the drawn-out saga of the end of Kenny’s reign and the appointment of a new head coach.
LONG WAIT
It is now more than four months since he was informed that his time was up. Granted, this was only the second Ireland had played during that period.
But it certainly seemed like a missed opportunity not to have the new person in charge for this international window.
O’Shea said he approached the double-header on the basis that these would be his only two games in charge and that he might have acted differently if he was in for the long haul.
First caps were handed for Szmodics and Azaz but the sight of Jake O’Brien, for the second time, and Joe Hodge being left on the bench will have infuriate those who are never happy unless there is a constant stream of new players.
But even they might just settle for a new manager at this stage. Not all of us can keep going like man-of-the-match Coleman.