WELL not a bad performance" altogether but not one to change my mind about the problems of our new system. We improved on the showing against Russian last month but we have to take into account that on yesterday's evidence the Czech Republic didn't look as talented or as interested as Russia.

It was a strange afternoon, our fourth successive defeat, just over 6,000 people in the stadium, only a handful of Irish flags and, I noticed, no perimeter advertising from Irish companies. The new era is definitely low key.

Despite that I thought we had the better of the first half. As far as the system of play went it worked quite well before the breaks. I thought the Czech's looked happy to go through the motions but for our part we kept the ball well and worked our openings patiently. We are slowly coming to terms with our new method of play.

My doubts about the system were confirmed a couple of times even in the first half. We seem to be more vulnerable when we have the ball. On the couple of occasions when they threatened us their attack's came after we had given away possession carelessly and suddenly we found ourselves under pressure.

Townsend got caught once and we were lucky to get away without conceding a goal.

Early impressions of the younger players coming into the team were that Kenny Cunningham looked quick and mobile and more at home on the right side of the three man defence than Alan Kernaghan looked last time out. He didn't come under too much direct pressure but he coped well and looked comfortable on the ball.

Alan Moore worked hard but I thought he looked too light to play in the position. He was in a hard situation having played little more than half a dozen games this year and he looked a bit to anxious at times. In that position sometimes you are better standing still for a while and letting the ball come to you rather than chasing and chasing.

Overall Mark Kennedy impressed me. His positives outweigh his negatives and for a player who is so young and who is out of first team football that is quite an achievement. When he gets the ball he looks like he can make things happen. He still doesn't do the defensive work. That will take a while. He is used to playing out on the left hand side and just making sure that the opposing full back does not run past him. Now he has to watch a greater area and stay goal side of any breaking player. It is going to take a bit more experience. I believe we need him in the team though and he will be persevered with.

Jeff Kenna did well but the weakness in his game is that he isn't going to beat players, get to the end line and whip a quality cross over. McAteer, with his engine, has the edge on him there in the tussle for that position. The same applied to Denis Irwin's performance. The Czechs weren't exactly rampaging down his wing yet he seemed reluctant to push too far forward.

I think the wing backs have to be more attack minded. Maybe Staunton and McAteer would both bring a different mentality to playing in that position. That would leave Irwin and Kenna back among the candidates fighting it out for a position in the three man defence.

European sides are used to playing against the system. Their forward players are used to playing, against markers and numbers at the back. When they play against the three centre back system they look to pick you up on the break. All their best chances yesterday came through those sort of situations. Come the real crunch games, we will have problems.

Overall we did good thing's when we had the ball. Ray Houghton is an intelligent footballer and seems to have understood the potential of Mick's system quicker than most. On yesterday's display he has played his way back into the reckoning for a place. Ray has the guile that can see spaces and passes, Niall Quinn worked so hard yesterday. He does as much as a player can do to make up for his own deficiencies. He may lack pace but he, gets into positions does a lot of running and, generally yesterday needed the attention of two markers. Our problem is that we have nobody to go tearing past Niall when he makes the knock downs. We don't have a player to, buzz about him and feed off him. We need somebody who can anticipate. Only then will we be able to stretch teams.

Their first goal was an example of what we lacked. Phil Babb who had a poor game, considering he plays in the same type of system at Liverpool got caught out following the ball instead of the man. Suddenly they had played the quick pass through and were in.

Phil Babb has become prone to the odd lapse in concentration over the past year and perhaps Mick's decision to replace him a couple of minutes later might have been sending the message that more is expected.

The second goal was an even better example of what can happen if you get caught on the break. We seemed to have pushed out for off side (which I don't think you should do in the three at the back system) and they made an interception at midfield fed a quick ball through and left Kuka one on one with Shane Given.

I don't think at present that we are getting the same level of honest defence out of players when we don't have the ball. This is understandable and will take time to get straight.

With the way we are now playing players are under the illusion that the numbers behind them are greater than they are. It is going to take time for the team to sort out who is looking after what, and exactly what the duties are.

We have Portugal, Croatia and Holland looming on the horizon. Mick badly needs the encouragement of good results to give players belief in the system. We have just hit the wall a bit. Yesterday we had a lot of personnel changes forced on the manager.

The rate of improvement shown between the Russian game and yesterday will need to continue. Somewhere between now and August Mick needs to pull a win out of the hat to convince his players.