Nathan Collins full of praise for John O'Shea's 'stress-free' Ireland tenure

“We have gelled a lot on and off the pitch. We have learned a lot. John and the staff have been ten out of ten. I really rate them."

STRESS FREE: Nathan Collins of Republic of Ireland reacts after the international friendly match between Republic of Ireland and Switzerland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

A draw and a defeat for John O’Shea in his time as Ireland manager, then.

It’s not a record that will jump off the pages in years to come but Nathan Collins is of the belief that the Waterford man’s brief stint in charge was an undoubted success.

“I have really enjoyed it,” said Collins after the games against Belgium and Switzerland.

“We have gelled a lot on and off the pitch. We have learned a lot. It has been a stress-free camp. John and the staff have been ten out of ten. I really rate them.

“There is a real mix of youth and experience with Brian Kerr in there. He has given a lot of experience. 

"You can see there is a lot of hunger from the manager and the coaches who want to learn and want to get better and want to succeed.

“So having that mix, having that confidence, you can see on the pitch that we are a good team, we can play football. I speak highly of John.

"They have given us great tactics over the week and even when we were getting it wrong [against the Swiss] he helped us out.

“He tweaked it, and that is what we need. It is showing in a match that we want to learn. We are working hard.

"It has shown that we trust him. We can go and dominate a game. We need to find that cutting edge.” 

Ireland Interim Head Coach John O'Shea with Nathan Collins after the match. Pic Credit: Tommy Grealy, Inpho.

Take out facile wins against Gibraltar and Ireland have now scored just three goals in eight games. It is undeniably a problem but one that was prominent during the Stephen Kenny era and even long before that.

Ireland simply don’t score enough goals and the simple fact of it is that they don’t create enough chances either.

It’s why they came up short in the scoreless stalemate against Belgium and in the 1-0 loss to Switzerland on Tuesday night.

“Very frustrating,” said Collins after the second of those games.

“We deserved a lot more. Up until minute 30 we were maybe a bit too relaxed, our press wasn’t as good, we gave them a bit too much respect.

"We got punished with the goal, which was probably a harsh one to concede from the free kick.

“But from minute thirty on we genuinely dominated the game. Our press was really good, we won the ball back in high areas, even in one-v-ones in behind I thought we dealt with that.

"Gavin [Bazunu] had just one save to make from minute thirty onwards so, deeply frustrating.”

Ireland’s worst spell of the two-match international window was the opening 35 or so minutes against the Swiss when they were swamped in midfield and unable to break the cycle of dominance enjoyed by the visitors.

They did manage to change the dynamic in the closing ten minutes of the first-half and had their moments after the interval, without ever really convincing, but it did at least show an ability to wrestle some momentum from unfavourable circumstances.

“We just went man for man,” said Collins.

“We took a risk. We are good athletes and good players, we are all energetic and youthful, we went man for man and backed ourselves.

"I’ll do that all day, it doesn't matter how it’s against, we’ll back each other.

“You can see it caused a lot of problems for Switzerland playing out, they started going longer, we started winning that, winning second balls, created more chances.

"As much as the high press was good, even when we went to a low block I still don't think they broke us down. To have the balance of both is really good.”

Whether good, bad or indifferent, it marks the end for O’Shea as interim manager. June’s window, which brings more friendlies against Hungary and Portugal, looks like being another new start.