Givens unhappy as Irish crash out

The exercise had always been about learning a bit more about the panel he will have at his disposal during the forthcoming European Championship campaign and on that score at least it was a case of mission accomplished for Ireland Under-21 manager Don Givens in Toulon last night.

After watching his team crash out of this international tournament in fairly dismal fashion, however, it was clear that Givens was less than pleased with what he had just witnessed in La Seyne.

It's not, after all, too often that you hear a manager at any level describe his own players as having resembled a "rabble" through the closing stages.

"The hope will be," he said "that the last few days will be beneficial for the players who were here. The three centre halves he had here, for instance, were all very inexperienced and I hope they will have learned something but tonight was terribly disappointing and over the course of the trip I think I've learned a lot about the players I have available to me, about their attitude, and in certain cases it's been very disappointing."

His comments followed a defeat which included a second half performance as poor as any by an Irish team since the under-21s collapsed in Zagreb last September.

A goal down at half time, the chances of the Republic salvaging the draw they required to be sure of qualification for Thursday's semi-finals certainly seemed slim.

Any hopes they had were killed off eight minutes after the break when Paulo Costa played a fine through ball to Miguel. The midfielder was offside when the pass was struck but the linesman waved play on and the player's finish was flawless.

Another day you could have gotten worked up about it but with the Republic never once threatening their opponents' goal last night to whinge seemed more than a little pointless.

Indeed it was probably just as well that Ednilson added a wonderfully lobbed third six minutes from time so that any notion that the Irish had been robbed was firmly dispelled.

The fact was that the team was outplayed in every department and generally battled unsuccessfully through the second period even to make it out of their half.

Once again possession was surrendered cheaply and then pursued frantically, often too much so for the referee who eventually dismissed Martin Rowlands in injury time for a second bookable offence.

"There are players in there in the dressingroom complaining about the referee," remarked Givens. "But he isn't the one who kept mis-controlling passes, who kept giving the ball away on us."

In fact the Irish had created a few chances early on, most notably from some decent set pieces but only once in the entire match did they look like settling into a pattern of fluid passing.

In the closing stages of the first half the likes of Barry Quinn, Richie Partridge and Clive Clarke seemed to be exerting a calming effect on their team-mates while in the absence of the injured Gary Doherty, Michael Reddy and Graham Barrett were at least giving their markers a fright or two.

An early promising spell ended prematurely, though, with a defensive mistake from which the Portuguese first won a corner and then, via their big full back Tonel, scored their first goal.

From then on Irish hopes of a place in the knockout stages of the competition steadily slipped away. The team's plight as well as the performance gradually becoming more desperate.

From the sidelines it certainly looked like the sort of encounter in which tough lessons are learned, the sort in which a coach not only learns about his players but in which they too learn something about themselves.

REP OF IRELAND: Murphy (Tranmere Rovers); O'Halloran (Cork City), O'Shea (Manchester United), Ferguson (Coventry City), Clarke (Stoke City); Partridge (Liverpool), B Quinn (Coventry City), O'Connor (Stoke City), A Quinn (Sheffield Wednesday); Barrett (Arsenal), Reddy (Sunderland). Subs: Baker (Shelbourne) for Reddy and McGrath (Aston Villa) for Partridge (57 mins), Rowlands (Brentford) for O'Connor (63 mins).

PORTUGAL: S Leite; Tonel, Correia, Caneira, Fredy; M Almeida, P Ferreira, Ednilson, Miguel; L Felipe, P Costa. Subs: Esteves for M Almeida (61 mins), J Paulo for L Felipe (65 mins), Ernesto for S Leite and F Teixeira for Ednilson (76 mins).

Referee: M Van Der Ende (Netherlands).