The challenge awaiting Mick McCarthy and his players in their attempt to qualify for the World Cup finals for a third successive occasion has now been starkly defined as a result of the latest misadventure at Lansdowne Road. Thanks to their 4-2 win over Macedonia in Bucharest yesterday, Romania are now assured of going to France as the top team in Group Eight.
Behind them a desperate scramble is developing, with Ireland, Lithuania and Macedonia all competing for second place and a chance of qualifying through the play-offs at the end of the year.
To achieve second place, however, Ireland almost certainly has to win all three of the remaining games, away to Iceland and Lithuania next month and at home to Romania in October. The game in Lithuania has now taken on an extra element of threat in the wake of last evening's exercise. Lithuania, as we suspected, were strong and disciplined in defence and are likely to be no less formidable when the Irish take them on in Vilnius on September 10th.
If there is a silver lining, however, it is that they will be forced to abandon their rigid containment game in front of their own supporters and go in search of the win which they, no less than Ireland, need to be part of the play-off series.
To qualify, the Lithuanians must negotiate a hazardous double assignment, home and away, against Macedonia, and that could prove difficult. In spite of yesterday's reverse in Bucharest, the Macedonians remain potentially dangerous and they, too, will have ambitions of going to the finals.
Romania are the only team with real cause for celebration. They started the group as warm favourites and have delivered.
With a place among the elite secured, they may now be tempted to experiment with some of their emerging players in the remainder of their qualifying programme and this could ease Ireland's task marginally when they play in Dublin on October 11th.
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