Givens blames blunt attack

Republic of Ireland coach Don Givens tonight bemoaned his team’s failure in front of goal as defeat by Italy ended their hopes of success at the Toulon Festival.

They lost 2-0 to the Italians, whose goals came in the space of a minute early in the second half from Alessandro Pellicori.

Ireland were vastly improved from the team which lost 2-0 to Japan on Tuesday, largely due to the impact of five debutants.

Clifford Byrne, Paul Tierney, Brian Cash, Joe Gamble and Mike Keane all made their first start for the Irish whose first half performance against Japan on Tuesday was described as ‘‘complete garbage’’ by Givens.

Tonight Ireland created more and had more possession, but, crucially, Italy took their chances.

Givens said: ‘‘We knew Italy were a good side. You’re not going to get six chances against them. You’ll only get one-and-a-half and one of them’s got to go in.

‘‘There were five people making their debuts tonight, so in those sort of circumstances playing against Italy is never easy, especially for the debutantes.

‘‘So I’m quite happy with some of the performances there. Obviously I’m bitterly disappointed that we are now meaningless as regards to the tournament, but we’ve got some positives out of that.’’

Japan are the surprise leaders of Group B, from which the winners go on to the final.

They were impossible to contain as they scored an easy 3-0 win over South Africa at the Stade Mayol in the earlier afternoon kick-off.

The Japanese play Germany next, then Italy on Wednesday.

Italy proved themselves a rugged team against Ireland, and Givens felt his players received an unfair deal from Portuguese referee Duarte Pereira Gomes.

He added: ‘‘We did perform quite well, and I believe playing against Italy is made all the more difficult if you don’t have a strong referee and tonight we had a very, very poor referee.

‘‘But that’s not the cause of the result, they scored two goals and we didn’t.’’