Montenegro 0 Rep of Ireland 0THEY MAY seek to set the bar a little lower, but secretly, as Giovanni Trapattoni says, coaches come into double headers like the one completed by his Irish side in Podgorica last night aiming to take all six points. Still, after a lively encounter with a home side whose performance made nonsense of their status as sixth seeds in this group, it was no great surprise that the Italian was happy enough with the combination of a fourth point secured and additional evidence that his players are learning as they go on.

For all that, it was not a great Irish performance. In the dying moments Simon Vukcevic might have snatched a win for the home side with a long-range effort that skipped past Shay Given's post and there were other instances of Trapattoni's men riding their luck a little.

But it was still a good deal better over the course of the 90 minutes than almost anything they managed during the course of the last campaign when they failed to achieve a single clean sheet away from home - and if they defended a little loosely at times in the second half they, nevertheless, produced an industrious performance in an entertaining game which they also had their chances to win.

There may not have been goals this time out but the hosts had developed something of a knack for being involved in high-scoring draws heading into last night's game and it didn't take long here to see why. Initially without Vukcevic, who again started amongst the subs, or Bosko Boskovic, who wasn't even fit enough to make the bench, they quickly showed that they had the capacity to generate a threat around the Irish box.

Equally, though, their back four tended to look a little fragile when stretched and so they consistently looked to get large numbers of players behind the ball when the Irish were in possession in order to smother the visiting side's attacks.

Up front, their skipper Mirko Vucinic looked lively from the outset although it was Stevan Jovetic who pulled the strings from the middle of the three midfielders playing just off the lone striker.

The 19-year-old looked desperate to be involved in everything, covering acres of a ground in order to make himself available to team-mates, and consistently dangerous when he was going forward even if he did tend to go down a little easily under pressure.

Thankfully, though, after a chipped pass in the opening minutes had set Vucinic up for a close range angled shot that Given did well to push behind near the foot of his near post, the young Fiorentina star repeatedly saw the bulk of his attempts to thread the ball through the Irish defence cut out, primarily by John O'Shea and Richard Dunne.

The teenager might have opened the scoring himself when a slip by Kevin Kilbane allowed Elsad Zverotic to get to the line before pulling the ball back towards the centre of the area. The pass, though, wasn't quite where Jovetic had wanted it and during the moment's delay that preceded his shot, O'Shea got across to make an outstanding block.

In front of Ireland's central defensive pairing Glenn Whelan was working hard in an attempt to limit Jovetic's influence and, while he didn't look quite as on top of things as he had at the weekend, he had his moments, notably when he bravely nicked the ball away from the feet of Vucinic as the Roma striker lined up a close-range shot.

Beside the Stoke City midfielder, Steven Reid had looked to be struggling early on but in addition to making a string of low-key but important challenges, the 26-year-old was again the fulcrum of the Irish team, changing the direction of the attack, finding team-mates in space with an impressive range of passes or simply slowing things down a little as required.

Presumably, it was a combination of the injury he was carrying and the greater threat being posed by the hosts here, but there were far fewer of the darting runs forward the Blackburn midfielder produced in Mainz and he was much less involved at set-pieces. Once, in the first half he let loose after a short corner from Aiden McGeady but perhaps his best moment was the long, floated pass for Robbie Keane that briefly looked to have set the Irish captain clear and on his way towards goal.

Keane was fairly caught on that occasion but looked to have been held back by the neck inside the area on another. Ireland's strongest claim for a penalty, however, came virtually on the stroke of half-time when Stephen Hunt's curling cross from the left was headed down by Radoslav Batak and then handled in what looked like an attempt to prevent the lurking Keane to get onto the loose ball.

It was one of the rare occasions when either of the wingers got a testing cross in and the pair were responsible for a succession of poorly delivered free kicks and corners, most of which fell short of the target zone and flew harmlessly to the goalkeeper.

In open play, the pair looked consistently busy but still struggled to get behind the full-backs and surrendered possession more regularly than should be case at this level. Both then missed good chances with Hunt turning a Kevin Doyle ball directly towards the goalkeeper from beyond the far post before McGeady fired tamely into the side-netting from a much better position after Keane's astute pass created the chance.

The McGeady strike came towards the end of a good period of Irish pressure in what was by then a very open game. On after 55 minutes, Vukcevic almost engineered a breakthrough for the hosts 20 minutes later when he worked his way in front the right and fed Vucinic who in turn got goal side of Kilbane before forcing a very good save from Given.

The Donegalman's failure to clear the resulting corner almost allowed Zverotic in but he did brilliantly again a few minutes later when Jovetic's shot from 25 yards was deflected off O'Shea and the goalkeeper had to quickly change direction to save low to his left.

Vukcevic's stoppage time effort was still to come but the home side simply couldn't make the late breakthrough and the Irish fans who, like their manager, had come in the hope of witnessing a second win, looked happy at the end with the point.

MONTENEGRO:Poleksic (Debrecen); Pavicevic (Energie Cottbus), Batak (Ankaraspor), Tanasijevic (Dynamo Moscow), Jovanovic (Cluj); Drincic (Amkar Perm), Pekovic (Mainz 05); Zverotic (Lucern), Jovetic (Fiorentina), Bozovic (Rapid Bucharest); Vucinic (AS Roma). Sub: Vukcevic (Sporting Lisbon) for Bozovic (55 mins).

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:Given (Newcastle Utd); Finnan (Espanyol), O'Shea (Manchester Utd), Dunne (Manchester City), Kilbane (Wigan Ath); McGeady (Celtic), Whelan (Stoke City), S Reid (Blackburn Rovers), Hunt (Reading) Doyle (Reading), Keane (Liverpool).

Referee:Sten Kaldma (Estonia).