Peter Corrigan: Something about the boy that needs protection

Cotton-wool factories all over England have been put on overtime to support the campaign to save Wayne Rooney from the dangers of his burgeoning brilliance. Any left over could be usefully rammed down the thousands of throats who proved on Wednesday that whatever progress the English team make on the field, their fans will ensure that they remain the world's most unwanted visitors.

Thugs apart, we can hardly complain at the events that so dramatically unfolded at Sunderland's Stadium of Light as England overcame the Turkish threat. We have been moaning so long about flat and flaccid England performances that to protest about a game containing more incident than we can rapidly digest seems particularly ungenerous.

While it is true that we have been requesting, demanding even, more decisive management, higher team tempo, greater invention and more individual initiative, we did not expect it all on the same night.

Now we are left with so many matters of great moment to consider it is difficult to know where to start. Rooney is as good a place as any. As an international initiation it has few precedents, but how quickly has the miracle been followed by torment. At least his club, Everton, can now share their dilemma with the nation. It is a little like discovering the elixir of everlasting life. How do you prevent a stampede that may spill the lot? Everton's manager, David Moyes has spent the last year growling like a lioness over a cub. The handling of a prodigy in any walk of life requires extreme delicacy and care; in a game patrolled by millions of scrutineers it is a task with a very low rate of success.

Before the 17-year-old made his full England debut on Wednesday, he had started in only 10 games for Everton. Moyes had been rightly keeping the leash tight, exposing him to Premiership football for 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, in a first season in which slow acclimatisation was the sensible policy.

On Friday, Merseyside was alive with rumours that the manager would react to the blinding glare of the Stadium of Light by leaving Rooney out of today's fixture against Newcastle, if only to demonstrate that he was remaining faithful to his policy of allowing the boy to mature slowly.

But, although that was his intention, an injury to Tomasz Radzinski has dictated otherwise, and Rooney is expected to start. But would Moyes be right to maintain his restraint if it would deprive Everton of a potential match-winner at a time when they are endeavouring to qualify for Europe? What can you do in this situation – lock Rooney in a darkened room, feed him the finest vitamins, have the most qualified sports psychologists whisper in his ear, make him watch videos of the all-time greats, keep the media on the other side of a bolted door and have a lecture on the evils of drink piped in every day from the Band of Hope?

He won't emerge with any more talent and perhaps the over-cossetting could have a detrimental effect on a demeanour that seems admirably equable. There was nothing about the manner of his performance against Turkey that suggested he could be prone to the normal dangers of precociousness. Even Moyes had to admit that the player reported for training on Thursday as if nothing had happened. But something did happen, and I suspect that Moyes realises that the cat is out of the bag and from now on the situation is not easily controllable.

The pitfalls will not be hard to spot. There are situations he has yet to face in his short spell at the top, and it will not be long before defences will organise themselves specifically with him in mind. His form is going to be subject to quiet patches and his off-pitch behaviour will be examined carefully by snoops equipped with those night-vision glasses.

But we have precedents that will serve as grim warnings. Some of the things he did on Wednesday had the touch of the old Paul Gascoigne, although he was nowhere near as young when he first wore an England shirt. The slow squandering of Gazza's talent provides the starkest lesson a youngster can have; the only thing he is quick enough to catch these days is a slow boat to China.

Sven Goran Eriksson was quick to acknowledge the problem. He urged us to "take it easy" with Rooney, which is a bit rich from a man who had just pushed him into the hottest possible cauldron. I find it difficult to judge whether this was the coolly judged ploy of a master or the despairing gamble of a besieged manager who, quite possibly, had only this game left to convince us he knew what he was doing. But it is not up to anyone else but him to take it easy on Rooney.

Moyes wants the player left at home when England go to South Africa for a friendly next month, and that seems a perfectly reasonable request. When the proper action restarts, however, Rooney has to be involved. A player of that massive ability and composure has to play. How long such genius remains in a body still developing is a question you do not wait around to answer. As Kipling might have said in his match report: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... you'll be a man, my son."

Which brings us to his captain, David Beckham, and others whose temper was not helpful. Once they realised that passion does not mean hot-headedness they settled down to provide their most encouraging display since the World Cup.

Sadly, manager and players seemed to think that their vast improvement proved wrong all the previous criticism they had received. What they should have said was: "We would like to thank the press for pointing out certain deficiencies in our approach to games. It is comforting to know that such advice is always freely available." Next time, we ought to let them work it out for themselves.

The downside of this momentous night was the misbehaviour of supporters before, during and after the game. I was astounded to read a statement from Sunderland praising fans for their behaviour and describing the troublemakers as a "handful". Either they have big hands on Wearside or this is yet another case of football authorities refusing to acknowledge the size of the problem.

Northumberland police had 1,000 officers involved in one of the largest police operations ever staged at a British match, and one shudders to imagine the outcome without their presence.

The Football Association, or the Government for that matter, cannot allow English supporters to go to Turkey in October. It may be valid to ask why we should allow them to travel to defenceless places like Liechtenstein and then stop them going where they will get the welcome they deserve, but we cannot defend sending this lot to Istanbul.

It is also worth pointing out that if this is an example of how club grounds cope with internationals, the quicker they slap up the new national stadium the better. For all its shortcomings, you never had such unfettered yobbery at Wembley.