Manager's reaction: Reasons to be cheerful. The sun shone on Lansdowne Road and for the first time this month a May evening looked like a May evening. Ireland lost thus sparing themselves one of those long, unbeaten runs nourished by friendly games and increasing the pressure all the while, writes Tom Humphries.

And Steve is no Sven. Hallelujah! Stephen Staunton resisted the temptation to put more pressure than is necessary on the shoulders of young Terry Dixon. He kept the kid on the bench.

Defeat to Chile was just about merited. They were weakened. We were weakened. Either side could point to moments in the highlights reel and a handful of chances which might have altered the scoreline one way or the other.

It doesn't matter really. Chile like Ireland are in transition at the moment and the evening was about learning.

It wasn't a wonderful game of football, played as it was at end-of-term pace by two sides who won't be taking any German-for-tourists courses in the next couple of weeks.

Staunton, in the tradition of tyro Irish managers, fiddled around with the formats a little bit but his eyes will have been on key areas of the park. Central midfield is up for grabs. The middle of defence has an opening for a partner for Richard Dunne. And a striker to go along with Robbie Keane would be nice too.

When he came to the bandroom he wore his good tie and a smile. No point in being downcast. "We've experimented like we said we would. We experimented against Sweden. It worked. We experimented tonight, it didn't work out. We finished strong though. It started sloppy and it took a long time for us to come back. We've had some positives from it though. We'll be stronger and better for it when the next competition starts."

As for Chile, they had played a staccato game, content to get behind the ball at times, good on the break. Their goal just after half-time, rammed home by Manuel Iturra highlighted some uncharacteristic hesitancy in the Irish defence. Staunton, who was never hesitant in that position, must have noticed.

"They were typical South Americans," he said of the visitors "They got their noses in front and they worked very hard, they doubled and tripled up on certain players of ours. They threw themselves in front of the ball, fair play to them. We can learn from it. We have to shift the ball quicker."

Time is running out in terms of these phoney wars. Stuttgart in early September looms ever larger and with just one friendly game left the room for experimentation grows smaller. Staunton is commendably unflustered.

"I said we'd experiment before we go to Germany and that's what I've been doing. We started out with one formation tonight and when it wasn't working I changed. We weren't getting tight enough. We've learned lessons from it, what we can and can't do. The more the lads get to know us and what we are trying to do the better for them."

Positives? "We had a debutant (Stephen Kelly of Spurs) and young Aiden McGeady came on. We had players playing out of position who looked comfortable there and others out of position didn't look so comfortable."

Staunton's alacrity on the touchline and the speed with which he saw changes and made them was one of the encouraging factors. By the end Ireland were playing with cohesion. The tinkering had worked.

"The last 20 minutes was something like what we are all about. The lads are downhearted about the results and the performance. They worked really hard in Portugal. They expected it to happen again, to just pick up. It's a reality check. The end of a long, hard season. They'll have a good summer and hopefully it will be the makings of them for next year."

He talks the housekeeping talk, plays it canny in the tradition he grew up in at Liverpool. He is asked about Jason Byrne. He speaks favourably of the big man. And what must he do to be in future squads, somebody wonders.

"Score lots of goals" says Stan. Which seems reasonable.

That's it then for a while. The World Cup is just a programme on the TV for us this time. Holland, who we'll be watching on the box next month, visit us in August, by which time we should know a lot more about ourselves.