Martin O'Neill says that he believes his Ireland team will be better than before when they go to Serbia in September to begin their World Cup qualifying campaign.
O’Neill believes that the way some of the squad’s younger players have taken centre stage here in France will stand to the group over the next two years.
“I think the players have become better players at international level which is the important thing,” he said in Versailles this morning before he and his squad departed for the airport and a flight that is due to land in Dublin at around 3.30.
“My only disappointment here is the second half against Belgium,” said the northerner who confirmed that he intends to sign the two year contract extension he has agreed and, he hopes, retain Roy Keane as his assistant for the next campaign.
“Peope will talk about what we’ve learned here and if there’s just one thing I would say it is that if you concede a goal it’s not the end of the world; if you stay calm you can get yourself back into it.
“The performance against Italy was fantastic,” he continued. “We played well when the pressure was on. Not winning against Sweden was a disappointment because if you’re going to qualify you need to win a game and it looked as though we’d spurned that but then to do it the way we did against Italy was fantastic .
“But it’s an ongoing process. I think that (progressing the team) is what we are trying to do. Harry Arter immediately comes to mind; Alan Judge, who tried so hard to get into the squad but broke his leg, as well, so we have things to look at.”
Some players, he acknowledged, may choose to depart but, he said: “Let’s see how they react, how they feel about it more than anything else and take it from there.”
Asked if he thought Ireland’s campaign had, all things considered, been a success, he replied: “I think that the players have performed fantastically well. We were in a tough qualifying group to begin with; I see Poland and Germany are still here. I see Belgium and Italy are still here and of course France, who we definitely scared for a good portion of the game, are too so I’ll let you decide that.”
