Ireland face Euro exit after failing to get better of Scotland

Back in the days when they were still on speaking terms, John Delaney and his opposite number at the SFA were key players in the push to expand the European Championships.

The tournament, regarded by many as better than the World Cup because of its greater concentration of quality, always seemed likely to suffer if the two countries succeeded, but the argument was put forward that at least mid-ranking teams like theirs would get a chance to compete at the finals.

Not for the first time, it seems, the FAI’s chief executive may have fallen victim to his own misplaced optimism.

Ireland now require a wholly unlikely combination of things to go their way if they are to qualify even for the 24-team tournament in France next year and the likely embarrassment of failing to finish in what is essentially the top half of the qualifying process may well be compounded by all of our nearest neighbours getting there.

Inadequate

Martin O’Neill and his players, needless to say, insisted after Saturday’s game that they remain in the hunt for this one and technically they’re right.

It’s almost impossible, though, to construct a scenario whereby Ireland qualify without beating either Germany at home or Poland away and on the evidence of this energetic but ultimately inadequate performance, the idea of any win in October now seems pretty far-fetched.

Those who hoped against hope that one might be delivered here generally acknowledged that a few things had to come together if Ireland were to prevail.

Most obviously O’Neill had to get the team and tactics right and after that his key players had to deliver.

Inevitably, the result prompted immediate questions about what was another brave selection, but there is little enough controversy on the team’s tactics and the performance of those key players.

The approach worked well enough, with Ireland's hard-pressing, high-energy game giving the home side the edge through most of the 90 minutes; however, too many of the players fell well short of the sort of quality that was required. Having finished the club season really well, Shane Long was passed over in favour of Daryl Murphy, who got his first ever competitive start.

There can be no real complaints about the 32-year-old, whose honesty and effort was plain to see.

He even had a major hand in the Ireland goal but it's impossible to shake the suspicion that a striker of higher quality would have done more with the half chances that came his way, not to mention the clear-cut one in the second half when he fired a low shot straight at the legs of David Marshall.

It went down as the Scottish goalkeeper's best save of the game, which says a lot. Long, in any case, has passed up the chance to press his case more than once before and Robbie Keane was simply not a realistic option. O'Neill's call, therefore, though slightly surprising, was no great shock. It simply didn't come off.

The striker's day, of course, might have been different had he benefited from the sort of service he was clearly supposed to get. Ireland's crossing though was poor. It was painfully so late on when the pressure was mounting and Robbie Brady's touch completely deserted him, but also at key moments early on. Most of those involved Seamus Coleman, whose final ball, often from promising positions, was invariably awful.

Comfortably eclipsed

James McCarthy, meanwhile, had yet another underwhelming afternoon with the 24-year-old midfielder chipping in well enough but failing utterly to look like the player we keep hearing he can become. What an occasion this would have been for him show the mark of a really top class international midfielder. Instead, he was fairly comfortably eclipsed through Ireland’s best spell, the opening 40 minutes, by one of the old hands, Glenn Whelan.

Ireland’s steady succession of frees and corners gave Brady plenty of opportunities to do his thing but Marshall was rarely tested and when it finally came, Ireland’s goal should have been ruled out for offside.

The players, like the fans in the stadium, were still celebrating Jon Walter’s tap in from Murphy’s knock down when the jokes started on Twitter about Scottish compensation claims.

Moments later, Gordon Strachan’s side defended another corner from the same side so poorly that Ireland should have doubled their lead but the chance passed and not long after the home side’s sense of real superiority did too.

There was no accounting really for the equaliser scarcely a minute into the second half. Too many Irish players were simply switched off as Alan Hutton started a move down the right that ended, amongst a great deal of looking on by O’Neill’s men, with Shaun Maloney’s shot cannoning off John O’Shea and beyond Shay Given into the net.

Thereafter, the Scots did enough to hang on for their point in the face of Ireland's increasingly desperate search for a winner. Wes Hoolahan looked the most likely source of it, until he was taken off that is, and it was his pass that released Murphy for Ireland's best chance of the second half.

Overall, though, the hosts generally lacked the ingenuity required to unlock their opponents’ defence with the introduction of James McClean, Keane and finally Long doing little to change things.

Gathering high balls

For their part, the Scots will be justifiably happy with how things went. For all the pressure, Ireland had barely more than half of the possession. The visitors were well organised at the back, where they played with considerable resolve, and Marshall’s involvement was largely restricted to gathering high balls.

On occasion they even managed to play a bit decent football themselves with their attacking players looking like they had more to offer than any of the home side’s.

Ultimately, though, they looked an average enough side and Ireland couldn’t beat them.

Michel Platini’s populism may not, on this evidence, add much to the party in France next summer but if the Scots can just see the job through now, at least their fans will have a good time.