A clean sheet but shortcomings exposed again

THE good news first. This was Ireland’s sixth consecutive clean sheet. That concludes the good news.

Now to the tidings of a more depressing nature. Roll up your sleeves, there’s plenty of it to wade through after a performance that was as depressing as the result was damaging.

Ukraine and Poland always seemed a long way away geographically. Add figuratively to that after this but there is no mystery to our continued failures. It is 10 years and a day now since Ireland have beaten a team ranked above them in competitive football.