Learning the hard lessons

FOR Irish football, it was a story of gain and pain in Stuttgart on Saturday night. More accurately, the gain was largely in what was regained - spirit, pride, passion, sheer hard work - all those basic but crucial attributes which, even allowing for the absence of key players, had been alarmingly invisible in the dismal performance against Holland.

Ah, but the pain. And it wasn’t just the fluky manner of the game’s decisive goal, though that was what was uppermost in Steve Staunton’s mind as he wrestled with the disappointment of a European Championship defeat in his first competitive game in charge.

“It was a cruel blow for us,” he said afterwards, “very cruel, considering the shot was going wide. It was a soft free-kick too but that’s football, you get a kick in the nuts when you are down there.”