Euro 2008 Qualifying Group D: Mary Hanniganfinds Richard Dunne determined to make amends in Prague for Saturday's late slip-up

The goal and the build-up to it are evidently so engraved on Richard Dunne's mind he can take you through Slovakia's injury-time equaliser on Saturday night with forensic detail.

He insists it's time to forget about it, move on, but admits, "The disappointment of conceding in the last minute stays with you for a long time.

"They just put an overflow of men up front, the ball came over, I challenged with a header, it came off the side of my head, it went across the goal. There were five of their men around and five of ours, but unfortunately it landed on their fella's foot and he connected with it nicely and buried it.

"So I don't think it was a loss of concentration or anything bad; it was just an unfortunate moment. That's just how goals are scored."

Four times in this campaign, though, leads have been lost, at home to the Czech Republic and away to Cyprus, Slovakia and San Marino, although at least in that last game Stephen Ireland came to the rescue, at the death.

"I didn't really realise that," said Dunne, who missed the Czech game through suspension, "but it's not something that you keep going back to. If we're in the same situation tomorrow I'm sure it will be in the back of our minds, but you just have to try that extra bit harder."

It has, he admits, been a trying campaign for the team, but the Dubliner, 28 in 10 days' time, has generally emerged with credit, his stock rising on the international front just as it is at club level, where he has been voted Manchester City player of the season three years running.

It took him five years to win his first 21 caps, but just two to take that tally to 37, an indication of how he is fully established under Steve Staunton.

"I think over the last 12 months he has matured," said the manager of his former team-mate. "He's taken on responsibility, whereas before he waited for others to do that - now he's stepping up to the mark and taking it on himself.

"He's at a great age. He's a big lad, an imposing figure. He's starting to use that to great effect. It was always a pleasure to play with Richard; you knew what he could do and would do. As a defender he's as good as anybody."

What's still missing from his CV, though, is an appearance in a major tournament, something he is desperate to rectify.

"Yeah, it's a real target of mine; I'd love to be able to go and play in a finals at some stage," he said. "Tomorrow's game is probably as big as it gets without being in a finals. It's a one-off really; the prize for winning is so big it's going to feel like a tournament game.

"If we can qualify and get to the finals it would push us up to being second seeds, and that would give us a chance to build for World Cups in the future. This group was always going to be difficult because we're seeded fourth, but the biggest disappointment was the Cyprus game."

"Over the whole group, though, we've probably not played great. We've got a challenge for ourselves now to prove over the next four games that we are a good football team and a team that can qualify from tough groups. If tomorrow is going to be the only game we win away from home against a higher seed, it will be a good one to get."

The Czechs, of course, will be without the suspended Jan Koller, who earned them a point with the equaliser in Dublin 11 months ago, but Dunne is unconvinced his absence will be all that much of a boost for Ireland.

"There'll just be a different threat rather than less of a threat," he said. "They'll probably have someone who's a lot faster than him, which makes the challenge different and means a different way of defending."

Do you ever watch videos of players you will be marking? "It's not something I've ever done, when you watch videos you tend to see the best bits of everybody. They put fear into you," he laughed.

"They're not for me. Strikers all have different assets. For me you just take it as it goes and just hope on the night you come out on top of your challenge."

And that, he stresses, is what the players, collectively and individually, need to do tomorrow.