Off the pitch, when you looked at the type of players that make up this Belgian team, it was easy to pick out the similarities with ourselves. On it, however, the differences quickly became apparent, for this was a team that could move the ball better than us, could move off the ball better than us and had a far clearer idea about how they could win this game.

That they may not have managed but, in a two-legged tie like this, a draw with goals in it is not that far off a win for the visitors and Mick McCarthy's side will find it very difficult indeed to rescue their hopes of taking a place among the world's best teams in France next summer.

If there was one thing that we could have hoped for to set us up on the night it was an early goal and when Denis Irwin scored one with just six minutes gone it briefly appeared that we might be about to impose ourselves on a match in Lansdowne Road.

It was difficult to imagine at that point that we were not going to test their goalkeeper again for the rest of the match, while on more than one occasion during it, we were fortunate to have a goalkeeper of Shay Given's quality to keep our now rather slim hopes of progressing alive.

While none of our players played particularly poorly, only Given looked especially good and once again our failure to create clear-cut chances resulted in us falling back into the old approach of lofting long balls up towards Tony Cascarino.

Once you do that your midfield is finished as an offensive force because it simply doesn't have the time to get forward and get involved. It doesn't even help Cascarino himself because he has to come back to challenge for the ball, thus reducing the threat he poses to the opponents' goal.

As it happens, they were well able for our aerial approach anyway.

Their defence was very good throughout, with every one of them getting across the back to cover and in the air they were excellent, with Mike Verstraeten, Eric van Meir and Gordan Vidovic looking to be in total command of the area.

Van Meir, in particular, was outstanding. He marshalled the men around him, read the attacks flawlessly and provided a platform for the visitors to turn ball won in front of their own goal into attack.

Unfortunately it's not even fair to say the Belgians were counter-attacking, for they simply went forward too often for the threat they posed to be dismissed in that way.

In midfield they moved the ball with a fluidity that we quite simply lacked, while there was a great appreciation by players off the ball for the team-mate in possession. It was, without doubt, the outstanding difference between the two sides on the night that when a Belgian player had the ball he had three, four, maybe five options. When an Irishman had it, he was generally lucky to have one.

And they used theirs well. Up front, Luc Nilis and Mike Goossens were repeatedly put into strong positions and, while Given did remarkably well to save on three or four occasions, we must be grateful too that, perhaps, the Belgian finishing was the one weakness in their game.

The way in which they imposed their own plan on the game from early on certainly seemed to indicate that they were going to have plenty of opportunities to practise their shooting. From virtually the time we scored they began to dominate in the centre of midfield and the decision to take Mark Kennedy off so early in the match was a brave but correct one.

The 21-year-old really hadn't any opportunity to get into the game and it is a little unfair to see it purely as a reflection on his performance early on. It was, rather, a tactical switch to counter their success in playing through our centre, a problem that almost certainly wouldn't have presented itself if Roy Keane had been fit to play but one which we must adapt to cope with if we are still to qualify, never mind make any sort of respectable impression next summer.

After that alteration things didn't look quite so bleak for the home side but the Belgians still had a lot of tricks up their sleeves as they pushed forward and Marc Wilmots, Danny Boffin and Regis Genaux repeatedly caused us problems as they swept forward.

In front of them, the strikers were mobile and hard working enough to tie our defence down for the evening and, aside from the goal, Irwin, in particular didn't have anything like the sort of impact on the game that McCarthy must have hoped for. When you're that busy defending, you can't reasonably be expected to contribute to the attack as well.

Their goal was excellent and we can have few complaints about it but what followed was worrying. Once again we looked unable to successfully chase a game. Our team as a whole, and our players individually no longer seem good enough to hammer out a goal or two when they are desperately needed and that is a massive handicap.

McCarthy has to do something between now and the return leg to change that and yet, what can he do? Few would argue with any more than the details of his team selection last night and most would concede that the Belgians were unable to field their strongest side because of injuries. So what is likely to change over the next two and a half weeks?

The only consolation we can take from our position is that no two games between sides are ever the same. Even if you are playing the world champions, things will break differently the second time around. It's not much to cling to, but McCarthy simply has to lift his team now and hope that in Brussels things break very differently indeed.

(In an interview with Emmet Malone)