SOCCER / International Friendly - Poland 0 Republic of Ireland 0: The handful of observers sent by rivals of these two sides in the forthcoming World Cup qualifying campaign should have known better than to think that there would be anything of real significance for them to take back to their employers from what was a desperately poor encounter between two weakened teams.
Whatever conclusions they may have reached about the relative strengths of these two sides yesterday will scarcely cause much concern to the managements of France or England.
For Brian Kerr the fact his side kept a clean sheet away from what he described on Tuesday as the "comfort zone" of Lansdowne Road may, given the difficult circumstances, provide some small satisfaction.
Kerr, however, has said more than once he is conscious of providing value for money and it is hard to imagine anyone amongst the 14,000 or so Poles who paid even the minimum admission of 5, not to mention the couple of hundred Irish who had gone to the expense of travelling to Bydgoszcz, felt they had got that at the end.
Both teams, of course, were much weakened by pre-match withdrawals and the visitors were particularly hard hit by the loss of quality players such as Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and Stephen Carr. If Roy Keane was watching back home he must have been relieved not to have travelled for a game that must have served to reinforce just about everything managers such as Alex Ferguson believe about "meaningless friendlies".
The Irish manager could at least have drawn encouragement from the trip had the younger players seized their chance to impress but none really made much of an impression, even if Liam Miller and Andy Reid did provide the occasional glimpse of their abilities.
The Poles, though, were the stronger side in a game hampered by, amongst other things, a poor playing surface and if they had a little more to them in the last third of the pitch then it is hard to see how the Irish would have made it to the break without conceding a goal or two.
The problem for the Poles throughout the opening period was that their lone striker, Emmanuel Olisadebe, found it difficult to make any real space for himself inside the Irish box while neither of the wide men deployed by Pawel Janas ever seriously troubled the Irish full backs.
Miroslav Szymkowiak managed the locals' first - and, for quite some time, only, shot on target - and the midfielder went on to let fly with a further three, increasingly wild, long-range efforts, but for Shay Given there was barely a save to be made.
Still, Jerzy Dudek had even less to worry about. Early on Alan Lee had gone up with the Liverpool goalkeeper for a cross from the right which should have been taken easily by Dudek but he punched rather shakily instead, suggesting that the Irish might profit from sending in a few decent crosses.
With the Irish midfield regularly getting drawn back into defence, however, the visitors' strikers were repeatedly left without any real service. On the rare occasions when the ball did come their way, Lee was rather easily contained by the Polish central defenders while Clinton Morrison struggled, largely in vain, to provide the link required to bring the midfield into the attack.
Miller made little impact during that first period with Mark Kinsella looking the more effective of the central midfielder partnership without ever quite getting to grips with the forward movement of his Polish counterparts. Not long into the second half, though, the 23-year-old Corkman did come close to scoring for the visitors when Morrison swung in a cross from the right and, having timed his run perfectly, the Celtic midfielder shot just over from close range.
Moments earlier the Irish had survived a scare of their own when Gary Doherty played a short ball back to Given and the Irish goalkeeper came very close to being caught in possession by Andrzej Niedzielan when he tried to take a touch too many.
The game, by this point, was finally livening up just a little although it remained a disjointed contest in which the Poles produced the lion's share of what little passing football there was. They began to make an impact out wide on the flanks where Alan Maybury had arrived for Ian Harte with John O'Shea reverting to the left side of the defence.
Maybury was booked within a couple of minutes of entering the game for a late challenge on Kamil Kosowski in what was a promising position for the hosts and, from Szymkowiak's free, Tomasz Hajto went close with a fine 25-yard volley.
The locals remained incapable of generating a lead from their dominance of play. In the heart of the defence the Irish were solid throughout and after coming on with 20 minutes remaining for Given, Nicky Colgan faced only one serious test when Maciej Zurawski floated a dangerous looking cross from the right that the Hibernian goalkeeper collected well under pressure.
Had Kosowski's injury-time shot into the side-netting slipped in between Colgan and the post, of course, the shine of not conceding would have been taken off the Irish performance but, as it was, Ireland were worth their draw if only because it was game neither side could claim they should have won.
POLAND: Dudek (Liverpool); Zewlakow (Anderlecht), Klos (Wisla Krakow), Glowacki (Wisla Krakow), Rzaza (Partizan Belgrade); Szymkowiak (Wisla Krakow), Lewandowski (Shaktar Donetsk), Mila (Groclin Grodzisk); Zurawski (Wisla Krakow), Olisadebe (Panathinaikos Athens), Krzynowek (Nuremburg). Subs: Niedzielan (NEC Nijmegen) for Olisadebe, Hajto (Schalke 04) for Glowacki and Kosowski (FC Kaiserslautern) for Krzynowek (all half-time), Boruc (Wisla Krackow) for Dudek (59 mins), Smolarek (Feyenord) for Mila (66 mins), Bosacki (Lech Poznan) for Klos (80 mins), Kaczorowski (Lech Poznan) for Zewlakow (84 mins), Radomski (SC Heerenveen) for Szymkowiak (86 mins).
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Given (Newcastle Utd); O'Shea (Manchester Utd), Cunningham (Birmingham City), Doherty (Tottenham), Harte (Leeds Utd); S Reid (Blackburn Rovers), Kinsella (Charlton Ath), Miller (Celtic), A Reid (Nottingham Forest); Lee (Cardiff City), Morrison (Birmingham City). Subs: Maybury (Hearts) for Harte and Barrett (Coventry City) for Lee (64 mins), Colgan (Hibernian) for Given (70 mins), Douglas (Blackburn Rovers) for A Reid and O'Brien (Newcastle Utd) for Doherty (both 80 mins), Byrne (Shelbourne) for Morrison (90 mins).
Referee: S Shebek (Ukraine).
