Ireland fail to prepare, prepare to fail

Martin O’Neill is far from a one-trick pony but his team is, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Two World Cups lost in under 24 hours.

The stretch from Tuesday evening through to Wednesday afternoon was a bad one for Irish sporting ambitions, but it would make far more sense to frame the Republic of Ireland’s failure to qualify for Russia 2018 through the prism of the shellacking of South Africa in the Aviva Stadium last Saturday rather than those in London two days ago.