WHILE Ian Evans did his best to put a brave face on things, the players who filed past him out of Dalymount Park on Saturday night were clearly struggling to draw any consolation from a performance that had included "some good things".

It had been a match which the Irish dominated for 70 minutes but, at the final whistle, it was the visitors who deserved their celebrations for it was they who had taken advantage of their much shorter period of domination at the start of the second half by scoring the game's only goal.

That came in the 62nd minute when, following a sustained bout of pressure which included a couple of lucky Irish escapes, the home defence finally crumbled. Sigurvin Olafsson sped down the right and sent in a long curling cross to the far post where the unmarked Bjarni Gudjonsson's close range header left Brendan Murphy with no real chance.

Gudjonsson could have had another one or two by then, with Murphy smothering his shot just after the break and his striking partner, Thorbjorn Alti Sveinsson, passing up the chance to send him clear shortly afterwards in favour of a pressured shot of his own which the Irish keeper again did well to block.

It was, however, as Evans was only too keen to point out, the visiting goalkeeper who was the real star of the show. Tested early by a harmless cross from the right, Arni Gautur Arason had looked shakey but he quickly settled, making fine stops from Dominic Foley, Steve Finan and, most spectacularly, in the dying minutes from Foley again when he somehow managed to push the Corkman's 20 yard swerving drive onto the crossbar.

Twice more he was forced off his line to keep his side in the proceedings as a series of darting runs at the visitors' back four, combined with some imaginative running and passing by Gareth Farrelly, produced a string of opportunities for the locals. Yet each time he was needed, Arason was to prove frustratingly equal to his task.

"Their goalkeeper was their best player tonight and that tells a lot of the story," said Evans afterwards, before conceding that his own side's shortcomings had contributed a chapter or two to the yarn. "The lads got a bit frustrated and tried to do a bit too much with the ball at times. They have to learn that when they do the simple things, move the ball around quickly a lot, then it will start to happen for them."