PLAYERS' REACTION: Yes, conceding a goal was a killer, the players concede, but not a fatal killer
REAL MADRID’S Karim Benzema, France’s €35 million unused sub, floated by, beaming as he made his way to the team coach, evidently content with his colleagues’ night’s work. Passing him, heading in the opposite direction, was a distraught Seán St Ledger, usually one of the more talkative members of the Ireland squad, but, on Saturday, in no mood to reflect on the game, or the only goal of the night.
“It was just unfortunate, to be honest,” said Shay Given of the Nicolas Anelka strike that beat him after deflecting off the centre half. “Seán just tried to get a block on it. It could have deflected anywhere, even hit the post. But they had the rub of the green and it’s gone inside the post. It was a real kick in the teeth, but what can you do?”
True, there hasn’t been an abundance of France v Ireland meetings in Paris over the years, but still the uneasy fact is an Ireland side hasn’t left the French capital with a victory since 1937.
But history can, of course, be bunk, Given insisting the seemingly impossible can be achieved on Wednesday night, stopping just short of brandishing one of those Giovanni Trapattoni “Hope” posters.
“We have to believe we can still do it,” he said. “In sport you always have another chance, it’s always about the next game, and our chance is on Wednesday. We said before the game that it’s 180 minutes – and that’s still the case. We still have 90 minutes to score a goal, so we have to be positive.
“They are big favourites, which they were anyway before tonight, but even more so now. But I’m quietly confident that we can go there and get something. If we grab one out there then it’s really game on.
“There is a lot to play for yet. They will obviously think they have gone through already, but hopefully, we’ll have something to say about that. It’s going to be an historic occasion if we can do it, it’s a big ask, but we’re going to be confident and we’ll have the belief that we can get the right result.”
Richard Dunne maintained the theme. Hope, belief, it’s only half-time, all that.
“That’s it, that’s the way we have to look at it. We’re one down, but it’s our belief that we can go there and win the game. We’ve scored goals more or less everywhere we’ve gone and that’s what we have to look back on. Take confidence from that.
“We’ve seen them tonight and they have decent players, but they never cut us open. They had a lot of the ball, nice movement and passing, but without doing too much. Every time the ball came in their own box they looked like they were panicking.
“It’s just disappointing that we haven’t taken advantage, we had a few good chances. But we still definitely believe we can do them. Now, it has to be done in France, but we can still do it. Our attitude hasn’t changed, when we sit back as a group and talk about it we’ll know that we’re still in the game. There is still a lot of football to be played and when we go there the pressure will be on them, the crowd will be expecting them to win and they will be expecting to win. We can play without pressure and go for it.”
With Robbie Keane’s arrival in the tunnel came yet more talk of belief and positivity, although when he wistfully alluded to the “devastation” the players would feel if “after all the hard work, we didn’t qualify”, you couldn’t help but wonder just how much “positivity” the captain was truly feeling.
He put a brave and hopeful face on it all, though, adamant it can be turned around in Paris.
“If we don’t go there believing we can win, well, there’s no point in going,” he said. “There’s no point dwelling on it, it’s done now. Our focus now is on Wednesday.
“We’ve gone to Italy and Bulgaria and done well, we’ve been very hard to beat away from home. We know our backs are against the wall now, we’re up against it, but there’s a carrot dangling at the end of it, it’s the World Cup and the lads are desperate to go to it.
“We’ve still got a chance, there’s no question about that. Of course, the one thing we didn’t want was to concede a goal. We knew it was going to be tough anyway. It’s going to be tougher now, but it’s certainly possible.”
“We caused them a lot of problems, in the first half particularly, myself and Kevin (Doyle). In the second half they were the better team, but when you’ve got the players they have, you know that for stages of the game they will keep the ball the majority of the time – they did that in the second half.
“Yeah, we do make it hard for ourselves sometimes, but no question about it, come Wednesday, we’ll have a go at them. We’re 1-0 down, they’ve got an away goal . . . which is always a killer.”
Not a fatal “killer”, though, he insisted, there’s life in the patient still.
So, no wishing France a bon voyage to South Africa just yet.
