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John Nice 
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 Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 3:56pm |
 J89 wrote:
Bukowski wrote:
Awful draw, but all the games will be must-see.
The big question for the November games is should / will Kenny try new prospects in mid-field and wing-back, and will he try Ogbene up front with Obafemi? By the way has Ogbene played wing-back at club level in the past?
As to posters on here re-writing history to say Kenny should have done x y and z it's time to move on.
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Still no word on Parrott's injury but with it being a hamstring injury it's safe to assume we won't be seeing him in November. So Kenny will have to find a new partner for Obafemi.
Obafemi and Ogbene, we might as well see if they can gel together during the friendlies. Similar think Keane and Obafemi should get a run together as well. In front two with Obafemi I'd say he'll perform better than being the CF in a 3-4-3.
At Wigan he normally plays as the AM in a 4-2-3-1 and even when they go 3 at the back he's sometimes plays behind two strikers in a 3-4-1-2. Still no word on Robinson's injury but should be alright hopefully. *touch wood* |
Connolly the dark horse here if he can get fit and get minutes for Venezia. He would be an interesting partner for Obafemi, he tends to work off the LHS which is ideal and is happy to drop deep, link with midfield and run at players. Worked very well with Doherty at LWB away to Portugal and also with Smallbone in the U21 games recently. Still think he has plenty to offer in a green shirt and its not like any of the other options are pulling up trees!
Longer term I'd love to see Obafemi playing off Idah (I'm assuming he wont be fit for November?).
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TooOldForThis
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 3:58pm |
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Any sign of a new coach? Been vacant a while now.
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lassassinblanc
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 4:46pm |
wanderer wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
Also not sure if anyone has pointed out but in terms of Matchdays
We play France at home on the 2nd matchday so expect a Friendly beforehand
Same for the last fixture against Netherlands we finish up on the 18th November which is Matchday 9 so that leaves two places open for friendlies...
Maybe Germany????
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Either them or the teams free on those dates from the other groups containing a NL team |
Just went through groups only non 5 or 6 pot team free is Hungary.
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J89
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 5:22pm |
lassassinblanc wrote:
wanderer wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
Also not sure if anyone has pointed out but in terms of Matchdays
We play France at home on the 2nd matchday so expect a Friendly beforehand
Same for the last fixture against Netherlands we finish up on the 18th November which is Matchday 9 so that leaves two places open for friendlies...
Maybe Germany????
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Either them or the teams free on those dates from the other groups containing a NL team |
Just went through groups only non 5 or 6 pot team free is Hungary.
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Georgia don't play match day one so could play them. It's been awhile  Latvia aren't playing and are actually in Wales on match day two. Probably wouldn't be a bad match if the pickings are slim. Should be a decent sized Latvian community here so you'd get a crowd probably. Albania are a pot 3 team that don't play match day one either but you'd probably prefer someone weaker.
Edited by J89 - 10 Oct 2022 at 5:27pm
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John Nice
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 5:32pm |
J89 wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
wanderer wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
Also not sure if anyone has pointed out but in terms of Matchdays
We play France at home on the 2nd matchday so expect a Friendly beforehand
Same for the last fixture against Netherlands we finish up on the 18th November which is Matchday 9 so that leaves two places open for friendlies...
Maybe Germany????
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Either them or the teams free on those dates from the other groups containing a NL team |
Just went through groups only non 5 or 6 pot team free is Hungary.
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Georgia don't play match day one so could play them. It's been awhile
Latvia aren't playing and are actually in Wales on match day two. Probably wouldn't be a bad match if the pickings are slim. Should be a decent sized Latvian community here so you'd get a crowd probably.
Albania are a pot 3 team that don't play match day one either but you'd probably prefer someone weaker. |
Albania or Georgia would be a good test for our squad players, but I think Latvia should be the one. We may well have to rely on our squad to beat Gibralter in June, just three days after an intense match in the heat in Greece, so it would be useful to have a look at some of our squad options in that context and as you say Latvia are probably the weakest option potentially available.
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lassassinblanc
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:15pm |
John Nice wrote:
J89 wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
wanderer wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
Also not sure if anyone has pointed out but in terms of Matchdays
We play France at home on the 2nd matchday so expect a Friendly beforehand
Same for the last fixture against Netherlands we finish up on the 18th November which is Matchday 9 so that leaves two places open for friendlies...
Maybe Germany????
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Either them or the teams free on those dates from the other groups containing a NL team |
Just went through groups only non 5 or 6 pot team free is Hungary.
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Georgia don't play match day one so could play them. It's been awhile
Latvia aren't playing and are actually in Wales on match day two. Probably wouldn't be a bad match if the pickings are slim. Should be a decent sized Latvian community here so you'd get a crowd probably.
Albania are a pot 3 team that don't play match day one either but you'd probably prefer someone weaker. |
Albania or Georgia would be a good test for our squad players, but I think Latvia should be the one. We may well have to rely on our squad to beat Gibralter in June, just three days after an intense match in the heat in Greece, so it would be useful to have a look at some of our squad options in that context and as you say Latvia are probably the weakest option potentially available. |
Agreed but didn't we play Latvia in a friendly not too long ago or was it Lithuania?
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J89
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:17pm |
lassassinblanc wrote:
John Nice wrote:
J89 wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
wanderer wrote:
lassassinblanc wrote:
Also not sure if anyone has pointed out but in terms of Matchdays
We play France at home on the 2nd matchday so expect a Friendly beforehand
Same for the last fixture against Netherlands we finish up on the 18th November which is Matchday 9 so that leaves two places open for friendlies...
Maybe Germany????
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Either them or the teams free on those dates from the other groups containing a NL team |
Just went through groups only non 5 or 6 pot team free is Hungary.
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Georgia don't play match day one so could play them. It's been awhile
Latvia aren't playing and are actually in Wales on match day two. Probably wouldn't be a bad match if the pickings are slim. Should be a decent sized Latvian community here so you'd get a crowd probably.
Albania are a pot 3 team that don't play match day one either but you'd probably prefer someone weaker. |
Albania or Georgia would be a good test for our squad players, but I think Latvia should be the one. We may well have to rely on our squad to beat Gibralter in June, just three days after an intense match in the heat in Greece, so it would be useful to have a look at some of our squad options in that context and as you say Latvia are probably the weakest option potentially available. |
Agreed but didn't we play Latvia in a friendly not too long ago or was it Lithuania? |
Lithuania, we haven't played Latvia since MONs first game as Ireland manager.
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Fruice
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:26pm |
John Nice wrote:
Fruice wrote:
John Nice wrote:
Stickittotheman wrote:
t_rAndy wrote:
A lot of posters acting like school children. Blaming Kenny and the style of football for us getting a hard draw.We have been 1st seeds and 2nd seeds in the past and got favourable enough draws and still not qualified. We have been 4th seeds and finished in the top 2. There are about 3 other groups were if we had of been the pot 3 team we would be fancying our chances. The North were 5th seeds and they got a decent group.
You can't blame Kenny for the bad luck. We don't know if playing another way would have brought us better results, could have been, could have just as easily been worse and wre could have went to pot 4. The argument is silly.
What we can debate is whether the football is good enough and we can do that during the next campaign too. Kenny was near the end of the road but he pulled the nose up on the field and that is why he is still the manager. We will see in the next campaign on the field if Kenny is up to it.
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No the point is that competitions like the Nations league are hugely important to us because there is always the possibility we get a bad draw. So every game and point counts. Yet all we had was we are Easy on the eye and building for the Euros. But the short term was that the NL was huge and we ballsed it up. The draw has made us pay for that. |
While the NL is important, a bit of perspective is required here, the team absolutely needed a complete rebuild, it simply had to be done, young lads had to be introduced, senior lads dispensed with. There is no ideal time to schedule a rebuild in international football, but obviously the NL is preferrable to an actual campaign. The draw was unlucky, we had an 80% chance of avoiding Fra/Eng and an 80% chance of avoiding Tur/Gre, we managed to avoid neither, that's bad luck. We now have a young team which is only going to improve as they gain experience - I think only 3 players had 25 caps or more in the last starting XI, 7 were 23 or under - this is the background to our last two underwhelming NL campaigns, campaigns I might add where we finished exactly where our seeding suggested we would i.e. 3rd of 4. Thats not to excuse poor performances therein and yes it would be great if we had gotten better results along the way, but context is still important.
Btw, being 2nd seeds would have guaranteed nothing, we have been second seeds or better on three occasions in the last 10 WCQ/ECQ campaigns - Euro 2004 1st seeds, WC 2006 2nd Seeds, Euro 2016 2nd seeds - We finished 3rd, 4th and 3rd respectively in those 3 campaigns. We have finished Top 2 in qualification groups only 3 times in the last 10 attempts (20 years), each time was from a seeding position of 3rd or worse. We have qualified for just 2 of the last 10 major tournaments. Some people seem to have a very elevated opinion of the abilities of the Irish team - we have been pretty much in gradual decline since 2002, hopefully 2021 represented the end of that cycle and we can now start to improve again - we are certainly in a much better place now imo than we were at the end of Mick II's campaign - it has taken longer than we would all like, but Kenny's been at it 2 odd years and there are significant green shoots emerging. The draw was a kick in the teeth. |
A bit of perspective also the euros draw was the unknown and should be more difficult owing to our 3 seed rank.
We knew our best opportunity to ensure a playoff at worst was the nations league.
As for a rebuild I’m pretty sure most of the players used in the nation’s league were similar through out the whole campaign.
And if anything it was his refusal to start arguable our best player in the nations league in obafemi in the first two games cost us dearly |
Look you can quibble away about individual performances and team selections etc. The opening two results were poor, no doubt. Obafemi had 20 plus minutes in both games to make an impact. Regardless, Scotland and Ukraine came into the campaign higher ranked than us and their players play at a higher level than ours, they finished ahead of us. We performed well in 3 of the 4 games against them which bodes well for the future. The result in Armenia was poor and shouldnt have happened, we had enough of the ball and the chances to win that game, but it highlighted the major deficiencies in the team, a lack of creativity in midfield and a lack of experience up front. These are still issues and there's no magic fix available. Obafemi (if he stays fit and can start 2 games in a window) looks like he might be the answer to one of the issues - there are still serious question marks over his partner up front and the two in midfield to compliment Cullen. |
It’s not a quibble it’s a fact the first two results cost us and key part of that was we didn’t score and Kenny left our best attacking player on the bench for the first two games. I remember sitting above in the stands against Scotland and watching obafemi do wreck and saying to our group why didn’t he start him in the other two games.
As for Ukraine and the Scot’s being ranked higher than us they are marginally ranked higher than us nothing to fear. It’s not Brazil and France for god sakes.
If you were to carry you thought process to its logical conclusion we would stay as 3rd seeds for ever.
And this is all in response to you saying that the nations league results was due to the rebuild.
Edited by Fruice - 10 Oct 2022 at 6:28pm
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VanBosch
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:28pm |
Wonder if the Friendlies (March and November) will be home and away?
Away to the Dutch then a friendly in November, I imagine if one is at home, they would want it to be pre France. The one after the Dutch trip is meaningless.
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J89
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:45pm |
Latvia don't play on match day 10 so could return the favour by playing away Poland and Austria both also free that match day. Could try sort something with Poland for the Aviva hoping it sells well given the Polish community here. Haven't played them in four years.
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Dalymount79
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:46pm |
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Georgia, Ukraine, latvia, Albania, Estonia and Hungary don’t have games in the 23/24 March slot s far as I can see
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John Nice
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 6:47pm |
VanBosch wrote:
Wonder if the Friendlies (March and November) will be home and away?
Away to the Dutch then a friendly in November, I imagine if one is at home, they would want it to be pre France. The one after the Dutch trip is meaningless. |
I'd imagine we would definitely want the March one to be at home, we wont want to travel before a home game vs France. I assume its up to the FAI and there is no necessity for us to play an away friendly on that date?
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John Nice
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:11pm |
Fruice wrote:
John Nice wrote:
Fruice wrote:
John Nice wrote:
Stickittotheman wrote:
t_rAndy wrote:
A lot of posters acting like school children. Blaming Kenny and the style of football for us getting a hard draw.We have been 1st seeds and 2nd seeds in the past and got favourable enough draws and still not qualified. We have been 4th seeds and finished in the top 2. There are about 3 other groups were if we had of been the pot 3 team we would be fancying our chances. The North were 5th seeds and they got a decent group.
You can't blame Kenny for the bad luck. We don't know if playing another way would have brought us better results, could have been, could have just as easily been worse and wre could have went to pot 4. The argument is silly.
What we can debate is whether the football is good enough and we can do that during the next campaign too. Kenny was near the end of the road but he pulled the nose up on the field and that is why he is still the manager. We will see in the next campaign on the field if Kenny is up to it.
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No the point is that competitions like the Nations league are hugely important to us because there is always the possibility we get a bad draw. So every game and point counts. Yet all we had was we are Easy on the eye and building for the Euros. But the short term was that the NL was huge and we ballsed it up. The draw has made us pay for that. |
While the NL is important, a bit of perspective is required here, the team absolutely needed a complete rebuild, it simply had to be done, young lads had to be introduced, senior lads dispensed with. There is no ideal time to schedule a rebuild in international football, but obviously the NL is preferrable to an actual campaign. The draw was unlucky, we had an 80% chance of avoiding Fra/Eng and an 80% chance of avoiding Tur/Gre, we managed to avoid neither, that's bad luck. We now have a young team which is only going to improve as they gain experience - I think only 3 players had 25 caps or more in the last starting XI, 7 were 23 or under - this is the background to our last two underwhelming NL campaigns, campaigns I might add where we finished exactly where our seeding suggested we would i.e. 3rd of 4. Thats not to excuse poor performances therein and yes it would be great if we had gotten better results along the way, but context is still important.
Btw, being 2nd seeds would have guaranteed nothing, we have been second seeds or better on three occasions in the last 10 WCQ/ECQ campaigns - Euro 2004 1st seeds, WC 2006 2nd Seeds, Euro 2016 2nd seeds - We finished 3rd, 4th and 3rd respectively in those 3 campaigns. We have finished Top 2 in qualification groups only 3 times in the last 10 attempts (20 years), each time was from a seeding position of 3rd or worse. We have qualified for just 2 of the last 10 major tournaments. Some people seem to have a very elevated opinion of the abilities of the Irish team - we have been pretty much in gradual decline since 2002, hopefully 2021 represented the end of that cycle and we can now start to improve again - we are certainly in a much better place now imo than we were at the end of Mick II's campaign - it has taken longer than we would all like, but Kenny's been at it 2 odd years and there are significant green shoots emerging. The draw was a kick in the teeth. |
A bit of perspective also the euros draw was the unknown and should be more difficult owing to our 3 seed rank.
We knew our best opportunity to ensure a playoff at worst was the nations league.
As for a rebuild I’m pretty sure most of the players used in the nation’s league were similar through out the whole campaign.
And if anything it was his refusal to start arguable our best player in the nations league in obafemi in the first two games cost us dearly |
Look you can quibble away about individual performances and team selections etc. The opening two results were poor, no doubt. Obafemi had 20 plus minutes in both games to make an impact. Regardless, Scotland and Ukraine came into the campaign higher ranked than us and their players play at a higher level than ours, they finished ahead of us. We performed well in 3 of the 4 games against them which bodes well for the future. The result in Armenia was poor and shouldnt have happened, we had enough of the ball and the chances to win that game, but it highlighted the major deficiencies in the team, a lack of creativity in midfield and a lack of experience up front. These are still issues and there's no magic fix available. Obafemi (if he stays fit and can start 2 games in a window) looks like he might be the answer to one of the issues - there are still serious question marks over his partner up front and the two in midfield to compliment Cullen. |
It’s not a quibble it’s a fact the first two results cost us and key part of that was we didn’t score and Kenny left our best attacking player on the bench for the first two games. I remember sitting above in the stands against Scotland and watching obafemi do wreck and saying to our group why didn’t he start him in the other two games.
As for Ukraine and the Scot’s being ranked higher than us they are marginally ranked higher than us nothing to fear. It’s not Brazil and France for god sakes.
If you were to carry you thought process to its logical conclusion we would stay as 3rd seeds for ever.
And this is all in response to you saying that the nations league results was due to the rebuild.
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Young team with zero creativity and lacking consistent attacking options turns in inconsistent results shocker. I didnt say we should be scared of the Ukrainians or the Scots, I said we played well in 3 of our 4 games vs them, which is pretty good for a young team much further behind in terms of its development than either of them.
The Scots were where we are now 5 or 6 years ago. It takes time for young players to develop, time for a team to gel. We are not a better team than either Ukraine or Scotland atm as evidenced by the quality of player available to us, but we are getting there, too slowly for many peoples liking, but such is life. We will achieve a higher ranking than Scotland and Ukraine when we are better than them, simple as that, we arent right now, no matter the manager, but we are heading in the right direction.
You have roughly 5 10 day windows per year to work with the players, it takes time and the manager, his staff and the young players are all learning on the job. Hopefully they will have taken learnings from events over the last 2 years that will help them going forward.
Anyway, I'm not particularly interested in arguing the toss about what has gone before, it's done, over. We have a squad full of young talented players who are finding their feet at international level -we are in a lot better position now than we were two years ago and I have a bit of optimism (despite the draw) regarding the future for the first time in a long time. However, we still have a number of fundamental issues that we need to find solutions for, creativity in midfield, consistency up front - we cant just go out and buy players, so we have to identify solutions and be patient while players develop. None of this is linear btw or easy. A lot done in two years, plenty more to do!
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Jack City
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:25pm |
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Just listening to off the ball, they said Greece are in the play offs no matter where they finish in the group due to nation league results.I don't have a clue how it works but that's what they said.
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Bandwagon
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:42pm |
Jack City wrote:
Just listening to off the ball, they said Greece are in the play offs no matter where they finish in the group due to nation league results.I don't have a clue how it works but that's what they said. |
You top your group in the Nations League, you earn a playoff. They topped theirs.
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t_rAndy
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:43pm |
Jack City wrote:
Just listening to off the ball, they said Greece are in the play offs no matter where they finish in the group due to nation league results.I don't have a clue how it works but that's what they said. |
They won their group league C of nations league so they are in the league C play off if they don't qualify automatically.
League A, League B and League C all have a play off route for the winners of their respective groups that don't qualify automatically.
Our route into it is if enough League A and League B teams that had a guaranteed playoff end up automatically qualify so their play off place becomes available and there are enough slots to trickle down to us.
Edited by t_rAndy - 10 Oct 2022 at 7:43pm
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Cabra Hoop
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:46pm |
Jack City wrote:
Just listening to off the ball, they said Greece are in the play offs no matter where they finish in the group due to nation league results.I don't have a clue how it works but that's what they said. |
Means they can have a proper go at this with the safety of the play off in their sky. And who is their first home game against ?
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John Nice
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Posted: 10 Oct 2022 at 7:51pm |
Jack City wrote:
Just listening to off the ball, they said Greece are in the play offs no matter where they finish in the group due to nation league results.I don't have a clue how it works but that's what they said. |
To all intents and purposes, both France and Netherlands have that safety net also.
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