Doyle: We’ll take the luck

Matchwinner Kevin Doyle had no qualms about admitting it was a smash and grab raid by Ireland in Astana last night.

“It was,” said the Wolves striker. “It was a get out of jail free. It’s massive in the end. Now we go into face Germany with a win under our belts so it turned out to be a great start to the campaign from what, with minutes to go, looked like being a disaster.”

Although fully accepting that Ireland had not played well, Doyle was at pains to pay tribute to the opposition.

“I think they’re going to be a bit like Armenia,” he said. “In the very first game of the last group, we only won 1-0 but they turned out to be a challenge for everyone. It was not easy out there against Kazakhstan. They get everyone behind the ball and attack at pace. And we also only trained on this pitch for the first time last night. But look, we didn’t play well, I’m not going to dress it up, but they made it difficult.

“Someone asked me if that’s the worst performance I’ve seen by Ireland and it surely wasn’t because we won the game. As opposed to being in Cyprus or different places where we might have just capitulated. We kept going. I saw us nicking a draw but I didn’t see us winning it when I came on. They were defending for their lives and we weren’t creating too many opportunities but we won it from nowhere.

“My goal? Yeah, it was nice to score, I’m delighted with that. I couldn’t have connected with it any cleaner.”

Asked if he thought Ireland deserved the win, Doyle replied with a smile: “I felt sorry for Kazakhstan but there’s plenty of times when it’s been the other way round so I can’t feel too sorry for them. Whether we deserved it or not, we won. We’ve been on the end of games where we’ve deserved to win and haven’t. We got a bit of luck in this one which we haven’t always got before.

“Now hopefully we can pick up a draw and a win against Germany and the Faroe Islands. We were saying on the bench that we’ve got Germany next so if we’d lost tonight it would have been a long way back even with only one game gone. But we didn’t. We won.”

Skipper Robbie Keane, Ireland’s other main architect of the great escape with his spot kick a minute before Doyle’s winner, was making no attempt to suggest justice had been done.

“We did not deserve to get the three points, there’s no question about that,” he stated. “We did not play that well and, to be fair to them, they stopped us from playing and they made it very, very difficult for us with two banks of four and two holding midfielders just sitting in front of the back four. Their backs did not push on so they gave us no space.

“It was tough but full credit to the boys as we came back. It’s a big result for us as it looked like it was not going our way. Now we can take on Germany with three points in the bag. ”

Relief was also the dominant sensation for Darren O’Dea.

“Certainly, I think that went through everyone’s heads. You need a good start and games like this you’re expected win — we expected ourselves to win. But it’s clearly not as easy as that. To be fair to Kazakhstan, we gave them the respect they deserved. But they were certainly better than what we maybe thought. I can’t say that was the reason we didn’t perform to our best. We certainly didn’t play well at all. That’s something we need to work on but, especially in World Cup qualifiers, it’s all about results. That’s the kind of positive we can take out of it.

“We weren’t in there (in the dressing room) thinking we’d played well but we’re delighted we won. We’re not patting ourselves on the back and we need to do a lot better but, in saying that, we’ve got three points — and even if we’d played brilliantly it’s still three points at the end of the day.”

As a centre-half, O’Dea was particularly displeased that Ireland had been breached by a set-piece.

“The manager won’t be happy with that and the players won’t be either. It’s something we’re quite good at normally. Defensively we’re well set up all the time and it’s disappointing to concede from a set-piece. Hopefully it’s a one-off.”

And the Toronto FC man revealed he had another personal reason to be relieved that Ireland got out of Astana with three points in the bag.

“I have to admit I’m delighted to get this trip out of the way. Personally, as well. I feel knackered. I’ve travelled 15 hours and I’ve not slept properly since I got here. That’s no excuse for the performance, I just mean it’s good to get it out of the way and get a win.”

For James McCarthy, who was making his first competitive start for Ireland, the artificial pitch had been a big factor in the night’s proceedings.

“It’s not an easy place to come, especially with the astroturf pitch,” said the Wigan man. “People will come here and not expect Kazakhstan to do much against them. But they are a good side and they knock the ball about. We played a bit of the long ball at first but in the second half I thought we got to grips with it and passed the ball, getting used to the surface. The pitch was a bit sticky but eventually it worked out well for us.

“As we got to grips with the game, I felt we pushed on in the second half and it was just a matter of time before we got the goal. Eventually we got it and thankfully we got the winner too. I kept believing. And if you keep believing you have a chance, and we got the result in the end.”