‘We have to take the positives from it’

MEMORIES of Euro ‘88 were thick on the ground, but a horrendous slice of luck reminiscent of Gelsenkirchen soured Ireland’s return to Stuttgart.

The name of Wim Kieft and his bizarre winning goal for the Dutch that day leapt immediately to mind after 57 minutes when Lukas Podolski’s mishit free-kick clipped the leg of Robbie Keane and went in past a wrong-footed Shay Given.

Once again, an outrageous turn in fortune had sunk Ireland’s hopes on German soil, but there can be few complaints. Ireland couldn’t have been more blessed until then had Given worn a four-leaf clover and got his gloves blessed by the Pope.

Another memory came to mind when the ball floated towards Richard Dunne’s head deep into injury-time, that of Ibaraki in 2002 when Robbie Keane’s late goal rescued Ireland from World Cup elimination against Saturday night’s opponents.

“I should have scored really,” said Dunne who, that miss aside, was superb all night. “It was a good opportunity. Unfortunately I got under the ball and headed it over. These things happen. It’s no use dwelling on it now. It’s done.

“We’ve got the toughest game in the group done with now and we’ve shown that we are quite capable of playing against the big sides.”

Dunne’s miss was probably Ireland’s best chance on an evening when, for all their industry, they failed to ask enough questions of Jens Lehmann who spilled the one shot Ireland managed to get on target, via a Steven Reid free-kick.

That is a depressing fact, all the more so because of Steve Staunton’s promise that Ireland would look to counter Germany’s attack-driven style by playing adventurously themselves.

Though Staunton responded to most queries on Saturday night by repeating his insistence that his team were magnificent, John O’Shea admitted Ireland could have done far more in the final third.

“We probably lacked the killer ball but we still created some chances,” said O’Shea.

“It was always going to be tough but we have to take positives from it.

“If we put in the passion and effort we did here we’ll be hard to beat. We have to win our home games in particular. That was always going to be the case if we are going to qualify from this group.”

If anything, Ireland have struggled on the attacking front even more at Lansdowne Road in recent years.

First things first though. Another trip is next on the agenda, to Cyprus.

“We have to build on this,” said Robbie Keane. “We have no choice. We’ll take a lot of positives from this game in the way we worked. If we can do that again in the future then we have a great chance of doing well in this group.

“It was obviously disappointing to lose. No-one likes to lose at any time. We got heavily criticised after the game against Holland but we knew we would be able to do much better. We bounced back – apart from the result.”