The result wasn't everything for Mick McCarthy who expressed himself as not at all disappointed in his side's performance. "It was a victory in terms of the way we played and the players we saw," said the Irish manager. "We are disappointed at losing but as an exercise it was very worthwhile.

"We should have won the game. I was very pleased with the players, in fact, I thought they were excellent."

Most people in the capacity crowd came to see rising stars, Damien Duff and Robbie Keane and McCarthy didn't think they went away disappointed in what they saw.

"They also went away praising Mark Kinsella who was magnificent in the first half before we had to take him off due to tight calves.

"Alan Maybury did very well as did Dave Worrell and also Sean Devine." added McCarthy.

He refused to be drawn on whether any of the players had shown enough in last night's game to receive a call up to the senior panel in the near future.

"I'm not going to name names, suffice to say I was delighted with all the players tonight. But I'm not going to name names, I wouldn't do that," McCarthy added.

Up to 1,000 people were locked outside as a much larger crowd than expected turned up.

FAI Chief Executive, Bernard O'Byrne, explained: "They were not let in for safety reasons on the instructions of the gardai, the Fire Chief and our own professional security officer. We regret that people were disappointed but at 7.30 there were 4,000 empty seats and we delayed the kick-off by 10 minutes. The crowd was much bigger than anticipated. It was reasonable to assume the capacity of 10,000 would have been sufficient".

The new Northern Ireland manager, Lawrie McMenemy, is keen to get on with the task of preparing Northern Ireland for a European Championship qualifying campaign which will see them up against Germany, Finland, Turkey and Moldova."That whetted my appetite for getting back into the game," said McMenemy. "There's no doubt we rode our luck, but football people will understand that's how these things happen."I was very pleased for the lads. It was a great game played in great spirit. Our front men worked very hard and I was delighted for George O'Boyle - he spun very well for his goal."The over-riding thing was our teamwork, and I must give credit to Roy (Millar) for the marking and organisation at set-pieces - they were excellent."For the Republic, Damien Duff has great quality. He takes set-pieces like Matt Le Tissier. But we didn't panic against him and we frightened them in the second half."Roy Millar, who picked the North's team, also praised his team's performance. "I like my teams to play football but the Republic didn't let that happen," he said."Now I know we can battle and defend when necessary. Darren Patterson and Colin Murdock showed they really could defend, while Aaron Hughes, playing out of position at right back, was outstanding."