Trapattoni's debutant goalscorers

While compiling the information on Trapattoni's reign, I noticed that there was a high number of players who had scored on their debut for the Italian. No less than five footballers all registered their first strike on their first appearance for the Boys in Green. This is as many players as managed the feat under the previous four managers combined! Under Jack Charlton, David Kelly (10th November 1987 VS Israel), Bernie Slaven (28th March 1990 VS Wales), and Tommy Coyne (25th March 1992 VS Switzerland) all scored on their first appearances, with David Kelly notching a hat trick. During Mick McCarthy's reign both Clinton Morrison(15th August 2001 VS Croatia) and Graham Barrett(21st August 2002 VS Finland) scored on their debuts. No players managed the feat under the next two managers Brian Kerr and Steve Staunton.
After Keith Andrews impressed in a B international against Nottingham Forest in November 2008, he was promoted to the senior squad for the friendly against Poland on the 19th and scored Ireland's second goal in a 3-2 defeat to their future European Championships hosts at Croke Park.
In the penultimate game of the Carling Nations Cup, the Republic of Ireland faced Northern Ireland in front of a sparse crowd at Aviva stadium on the 24th May 2011. Stephen Ward and Simon Cox were both handed their first appearances by the Italian, and they scored the first and final goals, respectively, in a 5-0 victory against our neighbours from the North.
After an underwhelming last minute victory over Kazakhstan, the team returned to Craven Cottage for their third friendly at the ground, following games against Colombia in May 2008 and Nigeria May 2009. Winger Robbie Brady marked his first cap, and his first start, with his first goal with a fine strike from outside the area. Second half substitute Alex Pearce converted a header from an Aiden McGeady corner to complete the goalscoring for the Irish side in a 4-1 win.
A double strike from debutants is extremely rare, in fact previous to Trapttoni's reign, an Ireland game had not been marked with this since 1976 when Joe Waters and Frank Stapleton both scored against Turkey in Ankara on their first appearances for the country in a 3-3 draw.

Goalscorers under Trapattoni

Unsurprisingly, Robbie Keane scored the most goals during Trapattoni's reign. The Tallaght striker notched an incredible 28 goals in five years under the Italian. No other player managed to get into double figures, with Kevin Doyle and Shane Long coming closest with seven and six goals, respectively. In midfield, Keiths Andrews and Fahey both scored three goals for the venerable manager, however Aiden McGeady managed two strikes in competitive games, one more than his fellow midfielders' total in competitive matches.
In defence, mainstays Sean St Ledger and Richard Dunne both scored three times, with all six goals from the duo coming in competitive games, to top the goalscoring charts for defenders. St Ledger possibly has a slight edge, due to his close range header against Croatia in the European Championship finals.

P.S. If you mouseover a player other than Robbie Keane in the goals section in the infographic - http://irish-abroad.appspot.com/Blog - several other players are highlighted - why is that?

#TrapStats

Over the last few weeks, I've been asking questions on twitter and facebook based around appearance data for the Irish side under Trapattoni with the hashtag #TrapStats - here's the final list of questions and their answers

Who made the most assists for Trapattoni's side?  
McGeady, with 10

Five players marked their debuts under Trapattoni with a goal, name them and the opposition?
Simon Cox, Stephen Ward (both Northern Ireland), Robbie Brady, Alex Pearce (both Oman), Keith Andrews(Poland)

Robbie Keane is the top goalscorer under Trapattoni, but what players were the top scoring midfielder and defender? Note - there's two midfielders and two defenders with the same number of strikes, one of each is acceptable as an answer  
Dunne and St Ledger (3) Andrews and Fahey (3)

Trapattoni gave 37 players their first cap. Who were the youngest and oldest players to make their debut?
James McCarthy (19) David Forde (31)

Of the 37 debuts awarded, only 2 were in competitive games (ie qualifiers) Name the players & games?
Caleb Folan VS Cyprus, Anthony Pilkington VS Sweden

Throughout Trapattoni's reign, only one team beat his side in an away friendly, name the opposition? To clarify, the 2-0 loss to Brazil in London was designated as a "home" game for Ireland by FIFA
Spain, in New York

Only one player made his debut in an away game under Trapattoni. Name the player and the opposition? Again, the friendlies in London are designated as "home" games for Ireland on fifa.com
Paddy Madden VS Wales

Two debutants scored in the same game twice in Trapattoni's reign. When was the last time two debutants scored in the same game before Trapattoni's reign?
Joe Waters and Frank Stapleton VS Turkey in October 1976

What is this? http://t.co/jHuNXN2hOb
Graph of the FIFA ranking of the team at each game during Trapttoni's reign, but I'd accept just FIFA rankings

No assistance on this one http://t.co/lYdey8xmMx
Graph of the number of assists by each player, the big circle in the middle is McGeady

 GW6, RD5, KA5, RK3, JO3, PM3, SS3, SL2, DG2, SH2, JM2, SW2, KK1, DD1, MR1, KD1, SK1, DO1, KW1, WH1, LB1, CF1, CC1, SC1, PG1, KF1 Figure it out  
 Each player and the number of bookings they received

All these questions came from research I've been doing for an infographic on Trapattoni's reign. The final graph is here: http://irish-abroad.appspot.com/Blog
You can mouseover pretty much everything to kick off an animation containing more information, and the numbers in the "Overall Record" section can be clicked on. Enjoy, and share.
(it works best in Firefox and Chrome, and Internet Explorer 9 or greater)

Shortest and longest lossless streak

Following the separation of the management team of Giovanni Trapattoni and Marco Tardelli with the FAI in the aftermath of the losses to Sweden and Austria, a question was posed on the You Boys In Green forum about whether that was the shortest time between consecutive losses in qualifers.

After examining the list of games available on soccerscene.ie, I can reveal that the shortest time between losses in a qualification series is three days in 1975, when the Soviet Union and Switzerland defeated the Irish 2-1 on the 18th May, and 1-0 on the 21st, respectively.

The Longest we went without losing a qualifier was from 10-10-1937 when we lost to Norway until 2-6-1949 when Sweden beat us, a total of 4253 days, although World War Two meant very few games were played between those two dates!

In the modern era, the longest time I can find between losses is between 16-11-1988 and 10-10-1993,  a total of 1789 days. Both losses on those dates came to Spain and both in World Cup qualifiers, 2-0 and 3-1, respectively.