Slovakia 2 Rep of Ireland 2: Steve Staunton spoke before this match about changing the mentality of a nation, convincing the people of Ireland that they should no longer settle for draws. After it, he narrowed his focus to the players who had twice surrendered the lead at the Slovan stadium in Bratislava. Re-education, though, like charity, might best be started at home and in the wake of a game that leaves his side needing to pull off an improbable win in Prague if they are to retain a realistic chance of qualification, the manager looks like a prime candidate for a spell in football's equivalent of "Room 101".
This was the sixth time in the last 16 competitive outings that the Republic failed to win a game they had led and Staunton, whose reign accounts for three of the slip-ups in eight matches, lamented the fact that his players had fallen into the age-old trap of defending an away lead far too deeply.
Despite having decided, however, to bring on two essentially defensive midfielders when something more creative might have been called for, the Louthman gave no indication of feeling in any way responsible himself for the loss of the extra couple of points.
His side led at the time of the substitutions thanks to a superb strike on the turn by Kevin Doyle after 57 minutes but were struggling to impose themselves on a wildly open but still scrappy encounter. An ability to kill off a game by shutting up shop with a couple of shrewd changes is one of the hallmarks of a good manager - it is, for instance Jose Mourinho's speciality - but it's essential to be able to judge whether the resources are at hand to pull it off and the line-up on Staunton's bench over the weekend suggested attack would prove a more prudent form of defence.
Andy Reid might have been able to exert some positive influence from central midfield as he had in Aarhus while Stephen Hunt's energy and enterprise may have done a good deal to occupy a Slovak defence that rarely looked at ease, particularly during the second half.
Instead, Staunton handed 19 year-old Darron Gibson his competitive debut with just under half an hour remaining before throwing on Jonathan Douglas with about half as long still to play.
They were surprising calls on a night when the Irish team needed very little assistance in surrendering the initiative to their opponents. On balance, the draw was a fair result but the visitors might easily have thrown the game away entirely late in the first half when, for a 10-minute spell, they completely lost their composure.
Over the course of the night generally, they mixed reasonably good spells with bad. Through the better, the Irish matched their opponents in most departments and created a handful of chances but their inability to retain possession was again a constant source of problems.
Stephen Ireland had provided a dream start, scoring his fourth goal in six senior appearances just seven minutes in after Kevin Kilbane's deflected cross was dummied by Robbie Keane but the young midfielder was largely quiet after that.
The Irish skipper did little to light things up either, Aiden McGeady was almost anonymous and while Kilbane's workrate down the left, where part of his role was to provide defensive cover for Stephen Kelly, was impressive, the quality of his crossing was an issue yet again.
In defence, the Irish looked vulnerable throughout although Lee Carsley did a good deal through the opening stages to minimise the threat and Richard Dunne was tremendous, easily winning his duel with Filip Holosko - at least until the dying seconds of the game - and producing a string of absolutely essential challenges and blocks.
The Slovaks had placed considerable faith in the big 30 year-old but he was comfortably marshalled both in the air and on the ground by the Dubliner and Slovakia really only began to threaten Shay Given's goal when they varied their attacking options.
Neither Irish full-back looked completely convincing defensively while Paul McShane provided one or two nervous moments during the spells that were dominated by the hosts. Even Given looked unsure of himself at times although he did produce two outstanding saves and there was little he could have done about either of the goals.
The first was the product of a poor corner brilliantly flicked on for Maros Klimpl who reacted quickly to head home unchallenged at the far post. The second, which came after a couple of earlier let -offs in time added on at the end, started with a long ball up field by the Slovak goalkeeper, Stefan Senecky. Dunne, under pressure, headed the ball into the path of Marek Cech who, as Douglas looked on and John O'Shea made a poor attempt at a block, fired low past Given from 20 yards.
A deathly silence descended on the 6,000 or so Irish supporters who made up the majority of the crowd and amongst the locals there were only half-hearted celebrations. Both groups, it seemed, sensed that the result would not be good enough for their sides. Despite Staunton's upbeat tone about the prospects of an upset on Wednesday night, it would now take something quite remarkable for either view to be proved wrong.
It would, for a start, require his men to take and then retain a lead. All the recent evidence would suggest that the task is pretty much beyond them.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Given (Newcastle United); O'Shea (Manchester United), Dunne (Manchester City), McShane (Sunderland), Kelly (Birmingham City); McGeady (Celtic), Ireland (Manchester City), Carsley (Everton), Kilbane (Wigan Athletic); Doyle (Reading), Keane (Tottenham Hotspur). Subs: Gibson (Manchester United) for McGeady (61 mins), Douglas (Leeds United) for Ireland (77 mins), Murphy for Doyle (89 mins).
SLOVAKIA: Senecky (FC Nitra); Krajcik (Slavia Prague), Durica (Saturn Ramenskoje), Klimpl (FC Midtjylland), Cech (Porto); Hamsik (SSC Neapol); Sestak (Bochum), Sapara (Rosenborg), Gresko (Bayer Leverkkusen); Holosko (Manisapor), Mintal (Nuremberg). Subs: Obzera (Artmedia) for Sestak (65 mins), Sebo for Sapara (72 mins).
Referee: S Farina (Italy).
