Wed 1 April
Italy 1 Ireland 1 (Keane)

After such a brilliant result, the RTE panel really got on my nerves tonight. Talk about down to earth in 2 seconds...

The naivity of the arguments flying around are frightening... Expecting this team to suddenly play free flowing attacking football and win every game without a challenge is just ludicrous. No international side in the world can justifiably expect this, except perhaps the top 2 or 3 nations. Of course we long Ireland to improve, but the starting point is always stability and making yourself hard to beat. Does noone know this? Dunphy and co are pushing an agenda to get rid of the manager as always, and its almost incredible that people take them seriously... they are not willing to allow any positive to stand without qualifying it with a negative. Being positive is seen as immature... well sorry for being immature, but I think I know a little bit about football, and there is no way on earth I would swap a Newcastle or Brazil approach (gung ho...useless at the back)instead of a more Italian or Liverpool approach (structured and organised...less glamourous). My view is that the latter approach will provide better results in the short term, with a few disappointments, but in the long run confidence grows and the team begins to play better football as time goes on. Liverpool are classic example of this. The Istanbul team was not as good to watch as the team today. It takes time... and obviously we're not exactly loaded with top quality players.

This means we need to stick with "structured and organised" for now, and live with the growing pains like the Bulgaria game, without acting like spoiled children who want some fantasy to suddenly appear miraculously before us on the pitch.