Mary Hannigan talks to two of the Republic's back four who had the proverbial nightmare in Cyprus

As one half of the Irish defence, and the word should probably be used loosely, that capitulated so dismally against Cyprus on Saturday night, John O'Shea and Steve Finnan must have been chuffed to have been selected for media duty, the short straws still protruding from their pockets.

With Champions League and Premiership-winning medals between them neither player can, surely, have ever foreseen so humiliating a night featuring in their footballing careers. Even the most bloodcurdling of nightmare that might occasionally interrupt their sleep is unlikely to have read: Cyprus 5, Ireland 2.

Whatever about O'Shea, who has endured enough error-strewn spells with club and country over the last couple of seasons to make his performance on Saturday less of a shock, Finnan, having a rare enough international outing in his preferred position of right-back, bore little resemblance to the man once touted as the heir apparent to Denis Irwin's "Mr Dependability" crown. On Saturday he was more Titus Bramble than Denis Irwin.

"Too many individual errors," said both players, "but it's all about collective responsibility". Hard to argue with that assessment, perhaps. The team was, after all, collectively abysmal.

"Without a doubt," said O'Shea, when asked if this was the lowest point of his career. "It was very humiliating to be on the end of that result but we got what we deserved because of a lack of concentration and not doing things properly. It seemed to affect us big time."

That lack of concentration, O'Shea insisted, accounted for all those defensive blunders, but he couldn't explain why he and his team-mates found it impossible to focus their minds on the job in hand in a game Ireland simply had to win. Therein lies the mystery.

"When you put on a performance like that there's incredible anger," he said. "You go through the whole game again and you are thinking about everything. It's just disappointing when you know the level of performance the team can put in.

"We're obviously very down, we're bound to be after a result like that," said Finnan. "We let ourselves down and everyone involved in Irish football. From a football point of view, it's the lowest point I've been involved in. A lot of the players feel the same so it's a big challenge now to get confidence back within the team and try to get a result against the Czech Republic."

Futile and all as their efforts might have been, in light of the ever increasing view that Steve Staunton is out of his depth, O'Shea and Finnan attempted to defend their manager, insisting that it's the players who should shoulder the blame for what happened in Nicosia. "Stan's not on the pitch, is he," said O'Shea. "Stan is not creating the problems that are out on the pitch. It's not a case of that at all, it's a case of getting behind everyone and making sure we're focused on what I'm sure will be a very hard job against the Czech Republic. He is trying to do the right things. He is trying to play the right way, to use our best assets. Stan is learning all the time, and we're learning from him all the time. He has got to get his ideas across to us and that's what he is working hard to do. And we have faith in that."

But can an international manager afford to learn on the job? "I didn't say he's learning on the job, he's learning all the time. We're all learning, every game we play, it's a different situation. This match will be a good test of our character, a chance to bounce back from such an humiliating defeat.

"Everyone is behind each other, everyone is fully behind the manager," said Finnan. "It's very early in Steve Staunton's campaign and everyone has to take responsibility for a result like that and try and put things right. We serve under his regime and we're trying to build for the future. The manager is going to take massive criticism but we're all in it together, we all take the blame."

Collective responsibility, then, but if it goes pear-shaped again tomorrow night O'Shea and Finnan will escape to duty at their Premiership clubs, their manager will have nowhere to run.