A BETTER performance, and a sprinkling of goals ensure the team move up into second place in the table. Now we can all head into the summer break with a smile on our faces.

Of course, the result was only what was expected by everyone before the game, but all you can do in international football is beat the teams who come to play you. Mick McCarthy has considerable cause for satisfaction with the manner in which his men went about their work last night.

From the very start it was clear just what sort of match it was going to be. With men getting into good, wide positions and a steady stream of good chances created, there never seemed to be any way that the visitors would stage a repeat of the shock that cost us our place at Euro 96.

It did take longer than might have been expected for us to get off the mark, but once the first went in for David Connolly, there was really no serious doubt that we were going to overrun them. Having said that, however, Liechtenstein are a very different proposition to most teams in these sort of circumstances.

While any team that harboured the slightest hope of getting a result from the game would be tempted to push forward once they had gone behind, a team this poor were never going to change the way they were playing. If Ireland had scored 10 last night their opponents would still have concentrated on preventing the 11th. We have to be pleased with the way we repeatedly broke them down at the back.

While the opposition were desperately poor last night (in fact about the only real conclusion you could draw from the game is that Liechtenstein should have to prequalify before getting into the group stages of a major competition), it was nice to see the Irish get a couple of quality goals.

Connolly did well for all three goals, his positioning and ruthlessness in front of goal was impressive to see in a player so young. However, his role in the second, the best goal scored by the Republic for quite some time, really emphasised just how strong a prospect he is for the future.

When Tony Cascarino came on, he did well, too, and it is particularly welcome that players whose future in the team is less than certain have come in, done well and created a little hit more competition for places.

Another man to have boosted his campaign for a regular starting slot is Jeff Kenna, whose crossing was excellent. However, head and shoulders above just about everybody on the pitch was Ray Houghton.

The Crystal Palace man still looks to be our most potent weapon against a packed defence and it was his creativity in and around the box that really made the difference between the two sides early on.

Unfortunately, Houghton is very much one of our thirtysomethings and it's very difficult to see what we are going to do when he hangs up his boots for the last time. Last night he only lasted 50 minutes or so, but if we do make to the finals of the World Cup in France next year then he will have done at least as much as any man in the squad to get us there.

Despite the couple of slipups before last night, whether we do make it to France still seems to be very much in our own hands. It must have been difficult to keep morale high in the squad in the wake of the draw against Iceland and the defeat by Macedonia, but having shown that we are still well capable of competing with the group leaders on their own soil, we have now put away a poor team to retake the play off position in the group.

The fact that we will be missing Gary Kelly for the home game with Lithuania is a pity but realistically it shouldn't have any serious impact on what should be another straightforward day's work. With that out of the way we will head into the really decisive phase of our programme in Group Eight of this qualifying programme. The matches in Iceland and Lithuania will decide whether we have another summer off in 1998. If we continue to play with the sense of purpose that we did last night, if Connolly continues to adapt to the international stage as he has done so far, and if we can keep creating goalscoring chances the way we did last night, then we can at least complete the first part of the task... reaching the playoff stage.

If, on the other hand, McCarthy's side slips back into the sort of aimlessness that cost us so dearly against Iceland and Macedonia, then there will be plenty of lads buying phrasebooks and looking for media work next summer.

. Northern Ireland sweated out a dull 0-0 draw in a friendly international against Thailand played in high humidity in Bangkok yesterday.