O’Shea shamed by manner of defeat

Republic of Ireland skipper John O’Shea had no qualms in agreeing that last night’s record home defeat at the Aviva Stadium was an utter humiliation.

But O’Shea, captaining the side in place of the injured Robbie Keane, insists Ireland were simply beaten by a class side in Germany and Giovanni Trapattoni’s side have to dust themselves down quickly to remain in contention in Group C of the World Cup qualifiers.

“Obviously, look it’s a massive humiliation at home against anybody,” said a disconsolate O’Shea. “You don’t want to lose a match and there is a way to lose a match. There is not much you can say. Germany are a very good team, but we gave them a helping hand with lots of the goals.”

Ireland started reasonably well and looked to be frustrating the Germans. But conceding twice before half time changed the game completely.

“We started the game not too bad and kept them out quite comfortably. But then they got the two goals,” said O‘Shea.

“We obviously changed it a little bit to have a go in the second half and obviously we left ourselves a little open and they took full advantage to it.”

O’Shea admitted that it was a dispirited performance.

“That’s what I mean, in terms of losing a match and that wasn’t a way to lose a match,” said the 82-times capped defender.

But he refuted that Ireland’s back four got little protection from Trap’s midfield five.

“It‘s not about that. Look, it’s a team game. We’ll win as a team and we’ll lose as a team. It’s one of those things on the night.

“You are losing the game by the couple of goals that we were and you think, ‘let’s have a go for it’.”

Despite the shocking result, there can be little time to mull over it as the side leaves for the Faroe Islands tomorrow for Tuesday’s qualifier in Torshavn.

“We have to dust ourselves down as quick as we can,” insisted O’Shea.

“Although we lost against Germany, qualification from this group will come from our results against the other teams.

“Germany were the huge favourites to win it when the groups were made and they were made to look a massive team on the night. But we’ve helped them along the way to do that.

“You look at the other results tonight and Sweden only barely scraped home against the Faroes, so we know we’ll have a job to do over there.

“We know we can do that and we can pick ourselves up again and look forward.”

It was a right baptism of fire on his competitive debut for Seamus Coleman, who admitted he won’t have slept easily afterwards.

“We need to forget about it. It was just not good enough by us against a very good Germany team.

“We have to try to forget about it, it‘ll not be easy. It’s going to be tough to sleep after that result.

“We can have no excuses. We have to wake up in morning and get on with it. We’ve a game Tuesday night and we need the points.

“Germany are a great team and you try to go and do your best against them. It was a disappointing night for everyone.

“We didn’t really think about that [it being a record defeat], all I know is that was not good enough. We have to move on. We have to forget about it. We can’t dwell on it. We’ll train and prepare for the Faroe islands.”

Striker Jonathan Walters agreed the players had let everyone down.

“Being beaten 6-1? Embarrassing,” said the Stoke City man.

“We let the team down, ourselves down, the manager down, we let the country down. Embarrassing.

Asked where it all went wrong, Walters said: “Conceding six goals. What can you say? We were all over the show, we couldn’t get near them.

“We went 2-0 down and it was all over and near the end it was a slow pace. I have never been in a match like that before.”