I have to completely disagree with you Weighty on that one and it's not often I do. Looking back at some of the performances of Delaney and McAuley I still say to this day if we were to go back and analyse his positions during the game you would not say that was a strong partnership McAuley went walk about in most games leaving McAuley often having to mark Delaneys player, during that McAuley was in the form of his life, he was outstanding and I honestly think he got Delaney out of alot of trouble, the following season you look at when it was Delaney Sonko, then you see how much McAuley got him out of trouble. I certainly wasn't one of the best defensive partnerships we've had, McAuley was IMO probably the best defender we've had since McGreal although he did take a while to find his feet, he certainly needed a manager to give him abit of confidence and I don't think Keane was that manager. In terms of partnerships, I though De Vos, Bruce was decent although both were limited players they seemed to work well together, I actually think Bruce could be a good CB if he was a bit bigger, he's actually not bad positionally or at reading the game his problem is I think due to his size he over compensates sometimes and gets a little overzealous. I think the Smith, Chambers partnership was one of the best we've had in a long time but again neither are probably the best defenders we've had.
As for Garvan when he first came on the scene he was outstanding as a 17 year probably one of if not the best I've seen, how many players come into a team at 17 and are able to dominate a game like that and he continued to do that for a while his fortunes seemed to turn like the clubs when ME came in and that age between 19-22 is a difficult one for alot of footballers, they often go through peaks and troughs at that age usually if you had a good manager and a stable environment players come out the other side unfortunately we didn't and like you say he didn't seem like the kind of player who would have responded well to Keane (if there's any player?), it's a shame because the boy is very very talented, i'd imagine there is a mix of things though, i've heard his attitude wasn't great but it's about managing peoples personalities.
