Cricket:Ireland captain William Porterfield was proud to have restored respect to his team after they bowed out of the ICC World Twenty20 following a no-result in their Group D shoot-out with England.
Ireland restricted tournament big guns England to just 120 for eight at the Guyana National Stadium before rain in Georgetown denied Porterfield's side the opportunity to chase down the vulnerable target.
Ireland's reply was stifled by two stoppages as they reached 14 for one from 3.3 overs before the 5pm local time cut-off arrived and with five overs of their innings yet to be completed, a no-result was declared.
It meant Ireland, who reached the Super Eight stage at both the 2007 World Cup and the 2009 World Twenty20, went out and England progressed alongside group winners West Indies on a superior run rate having hit 191 for five against the hosts. Ireland were bowled out by for 68 by the Windies.
"We spoke about it before the game, the feeling you get from getting through and kicking on," Porterfield said. "That's what we wanted to do this time, progress and move on to the Super Eights and beat the big teams in there and be competitive with them.
"We had our sights on getting to the Super Eights and I think the way we performed showed glimpses that we can do that.
"I think the way we came out, especially after the disappointment of Friday was great the way we bounced back.
"If we can take that attitude into every game, the way we came into this, then we'll go places."
Porterfield could not help but rue the dismal batting display against the West Indies last Friday night for contributing to Ireland's early exit from the tournament.
"Yes, you can't lose a game by 70 runs when you've restricted a team to under 140," the Irish captain said. "It's obviously very disappointing but we put that behind us, got it out of our system and we knew it was just a straight shoot-out.
"At the end of the day, we shot ourselves in the foot on Friday night but I think the way we bounced back was pretty good."
Porterfield said the poor showing against the West Indies had provoked a strong response from his team heading into the England game.
"I think it was one of the most disappointing performances I've had in an Ireland shirt," he said.
"So it was pretty difficult after Friday night but we said 'we've got to leave that here, we've got a massive game coming up' and they way they approached their training the next two days showed me the lads believed they could come here today and win, especially having got the result we needed yesterday (when West Indies beat England).
"We had that belief coming in today that we could turn that right around."