Woe in Warsaw means play-off minefield beckons for Republic

After the euphoria of the defeat of Germany, Irish football was brought crashing back down to the earth in Warsaw, as Poland booked their place at the Euro 2016 finals leaving Martin O’Neill’s men to try to seek entry to France through the back door of the play-offs, the draw for which will take place on Sunday.

Worse, they will have to go into the play-off without John O’Shea and Jon Walters, the former seeing red and the latter yellow for fouls, committed in desperation as time ran out, on Polish talisman Robert Lewandowski.

Perhaps it was partly the monumental effort which Ireland had put in to dethrone the world champions on Thursday but, just 72 hours later, they simply couldn’t summon another performance worthy of securing the 2-2 draw or better needed to progress automatically to the tournament next summer.