Great joy and a little relief help ease the general pain

"Come, come, come to Bursa" was the banner headline on the front page of Turkish sports daily Fanatik yesterday morning. It headed an inside page with the claim "We were like lions", and this theme was taken up by Aksam, which led the main sports page with "Bravo Lions!"

This is symptomatic of the joy (not untinged with relief) which swept through the media at the 11 result. Most papers quoted coach Mustafa Denizli as saying that his men would finish the job in Bursa, and most of the columnists agreed with him.

"It looks like Ireland, in the fourth play-off in its history, is going to suffer a disappointment," wrote Sabah's cautious veteran Hincal Uluc, one of the TRT television commentary team at Lansdowne Road.

The joy was not unconfined. Fanatik's main rival, Fotomac,was one of several papers to state that the match provided some measure of comfort to a nation still mourning after Friday's earthquake which claimed upwards of 350 lives in the Marmara region.

Making the same point, former referee Erman Toroglu (again in Sabah) said, "This (result) came like medicine."

There was almost complete agreement that Turkish goalkeeper Rustu Rencber was the man of the match. "Here's another panther for you," wrote Coskun Ozari, one of Denizli's predecessors, in Fanatik. "The Dublin panther Rustu."

The Turkish press is inclined to concentrate on its players at the expense of the opposition, but there was widespread praise for Kevin Kilbane's performance.

Praise, too, for President McAleese's gesture in saluting the Turkish fans before the match, though some, including Hurriyet, spoiled it by giving her name as "McAllison".

The choice of Anders Frist as the match referee had been criticised by the media in Turkey. It was feared that he would allow the Irish to play an overly physical game. That did not happen, and Frisk got a generally good press with Hurriyet calling him the "Super Swede".

On a carping note, Star ran an item alleging that the Turkish team had been kept awake by "20 to 25 drunken Irish fanatics shouting loudly outside their hotel all night." Star is the stable-mate of Star TV which is at the centre of the Bursa broadcasting row. Both the paper and the television station have been remarkably silent about this.

Hurriyet and Fanatik reported angrily on the Irish Sun which, on the morning of the match, showed a picture of Mick McCarthy dressed as a chef and holding a platter of roast Turkey under the headline "Roast Em!" This may seem like harmless punning to an English-speaker, but here, comparing a nation to poultry is regarded as a grievous insult.

But back to the joy. In Milliyet, Attila Gokce, chairman of the Turkish Sports Writers' Association, summarised the feelings of many others: "What did Mustafa Denizli say? `Ireland will not be able to beat us.' He trusted his team, he believed in himself and in his players. He kept his word."

Michael Severn writes for the Turkish Daily News