Stan: I’ll see it through

BASEBALL uses the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ system and Steve Staunton will do well to avoid such a fate after his Irish side made it a hat-trick of embarrassing displays in a European qualifying campaign that has utterly laid bare the manager’s inexperience at this level.

Nicosia 12 months ago was bad enough, San Marino in February was very nearly worse but last night’s abject performance — at home and against a side that travels about as well as Guinness — takes the biscuit.

Staunton is nothing if not consistent though. His response to the question on his own future last night was a carbon copy of those he gave after the first Cypriot game and the away fixture in San Marino.