Ireland still struggling with the lead role

ON Saturday night in Croke Park, Ireland were like the man whose numbers come up in the lotto only to discover that he’s lost the winning ticket.

Ecstasy and agony have been well-known bedfellows to followers of Irish football down the years but rarely have they snuggled up so closely together as in the space of the mere three minutes it took to separate Sean St Ledger’s diving header from Alberto Gilardino’s unruffled finish.

That scarcely believable exchange of late, late goals turned Croke Park from party central into a graveyard in an instant and made a draw against the world champions feel like a defeat.