Keane is `gutted' by late booking

It was, for everyone, a night of highs and lows. But for some the intensity of the various emotions might have been just a little stronger than for others. Take Robbie Keane, for instance. With 10 minutes to play his goal seemed to provide just the bridge to next summer's European finals that Mick McCarthy's side had been looking to construct all night.

Six minutes later, with the tie all square again, Keane showed just how much maturing he still has to do when he talked his way into a booking over a minor refereeing decision going against him slap bang in the middle of nowhere.

The outburst cost the Republic the services of its most threatening striker for Wednesday's return match in Bursa, a fact which Mick McCarthy must find terribly frustrating. Keane, of course, was also far from happy although on a night when he might have been booked on at least one or two previous occasions by a pretty laid back referee, he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to accept his portion of the blame.

"I'm gutted," he said afterwards as he made his way out of the ground and towards the waiting team bus. "One minute I was on a big high and the next it all went completely wrong for me and the rest of the team.

"The booking changes everything for me. I should have been preparing for the biggest game of my career but instead I'm going to miss it. It's not all about me, though," he added, "the lads can still go out there and win, that's the important thing."

That, needless to say, was the line all around. Denis Irwin admitted to being disappointed with the way the visitors had been allowed to get themselves into the game so quickly after what should have been the winning goal but, he insisted, "we're still in the game, very much in it."

On balance, he said, "I thought we played very well in the first 15 or 20 minutes when we created two or three very good chances. They came into it more as the game went on, especially in the second half when they passed the ball a good bit better but when we got a goal ahead with so little time left obviously you would have hoped to keep it like that through to the end."

Irwin, perhaps for the sake of diplomacy, said that he would have to see the penalty incident again but Gary Breen was adamant that Lee Carsley had been poorly treated.

"Lee was just trying to get up," said Breen, who had a perfect view of the incident "and there was nobody near him. It wasn't like he handled to stop the, scoring or anything like that. It had just been on his chest and it rolled down his arm, to give a penalty for that seems terribly harsh to me."

There were, he conceded, disappointing aspects to the Irish performance but generally it had simply not been good enough to provide the advantage hoped for ahead of Wednesday's game. "They aren't a bad side, though, and their goalkeeper was in fantastic form, it's frustrating to have another goalkeeper come here and get Man of the Match.

"The bottom line, though, is that we've got to get on with it now. We're still in it and we know that we have to out there now and get the win, there's not much else you can say about the situation really."