Difficult road to qualify for Asian feast

Well, there's certainly another hard road ahead of us. Yes, it could have been worse, but right now it's not easy to be in any way optimistic about qualifying for the next World Cup.

For a start, we'll be playing for second place, and that means looking at another play-off at best. And coming up against teams like Holland and Portugal away is not something to look forward to, so it's difficult to be positive when there are so many negatives in the equation.

There's no arguing that Holland are one of the best sides in Europe at the moment. They're extremely balanced and sprinkled with world class players. Similarly, I rate Portugal very highly, and even if they haven't got as many good players, they will always be a very difficult team to beat. Realistically, then, the best we can hope for is the runner-up spot.

One major factor is that over the series of 10 matches, we will always encounter problems. Historically, most of our players have long, hard seasons and a lot will depend on the timing of our games and the sequence that we play them. It would certainly benefit us if we can get more of our difficult fixtures at the start of the qualifying campaign, especially the away games. That will at least be early in the season and for most of the players, the time when they are the fittest and freshest. At the other end of things, players are tired and that means more injuries.

But you also have to ask some of the hard questions. Are we capable of going to Holland and Portugal and getting the points? At the moment, that is very debatable.

In my opinion, there's no doubt that right now Holland and Portugal are better than us. As the qualifying games progress, then of course the Irish side can evolve but right now we just don't have the personnel to beat them. You're looking at the likes of Niall Quinn as one of the main goal scorers, and after that, there is still the problem of who is capable of playing alongside Robbie Keane. I find that very worrying.

In any form of football, especially over a number of games like this, you're only as strong as your weakest link. The fact is, a number of our players are limited to Division One football in England. So we're looking at a number of players who are not even experiencing Premiership football. On top of that, we always assume that we will have the likes of Robbie and Roy Keane available and injury free.

It might be said that Holland and Portugal will neutralise each other in qualifying, but they can just as easily neutralise us. Besides, you look at the other teams like Cyprus and Estonia and you just can't afford to say they will be a pushover. Maybe 10 years ago there were a dozen or so countries that could be regarded as easy games, but right now it's no more than three or four. Each of these games will demand a strong Irish performance.

Some people have made the point that Holland are sometimes upset by internal problems in major tournaments such as this, but I disagree. For a start, that only seems to happen after they've actually qualified for the finals. Whatever trouble there is only begins at the later stages. And others accuse the Dutch of being somewhat lethargic and lazy in their qualifying campaigns, and that they can self-combust at times, but they always have the ability and can still win when they have too.

In fact, the best thing I can imagine right now is for Holland to actually win Euro 2000 next summer. Then I hope we get to play them straight after, especially our away tie, because I reckon that is going to be the best time to catch them. It would certainly be a big boost for us if things worked out that way.

On the positive side, we do have a good home record under Mick McCarthy, especially in the qualifying matches for Euro 2000, and we'll have to try and keep that going. We have been able to play different styles of football at home, and stretch teams a lot more than usual. We'll have to maintain that at the very least.

But to me our Achilles heel has got to be our away record. In trying to qualify for Euro 2000, we rarely scored, and rarely made chances. As a team, we seemed to spend most of the time defending, especially against the likes of Croatia and Yugoslavia. We never opened those teams to any great extent, and that is bound to cause further problems here.

So clearly it will be a major achievement for us to qualify out of this group. You don't want to be too down-hearted, and a lot can depend on the run of the ball over the 18 months or so of the qualifying stages, but if I was to look into the future then it doesn't bode well.

I would certainly take the playoff spot right now, and see it as a major bonus. The fact is, until we qualify for another major tournament, we're always going to be hopeful that it's a favourable ball that's drawn out of the drum for us on occasions like this.

(In an interview with Ian O'Riordan)