Little consolation for heroic Kiely

Scarcely 10 minutes after the game had finished Jeff Kenna wandered, head down, around the common area between the two dressingrooms on the way to a random drugs test.

On one side of the corridor Turkish journalists and television crews bagged the steady stream of happy looking local players who emerged en route to the celebrations. On the other, half a dozen Irish reporters looked on at Kenna. Somebody muttered a request for a few words and nobody was surprised when he muttered a refusal.

Things didn't quieten down much for more than half an hour but by the time the Irish players emerged and headed for the bus, a route had been cleared and, barely pausing to glance up from the grey tiled floor below, most of them chose to leave the Ataturk stadium behind as quickly as was humanly possible.

One of only a couple of exceptions was Dean Kiely, the man who had started a full international for the first time and who, in a team that gave a spirited performance, had stood out for the character and coolness he had displayed.

Just as the enduring image from Brussels two years ago had been the lonely Shay Given, surrounded by photographers as he wandered towards the dressing room while wiping the tears from his face, so now Kiely appeared to represent a symbol of hope of the future on another night of despair.

If there was anything positive to be taken from the two legs of this play-off it was the fact that there was somebody like Kiely to come in and show that there can be better days to look forward to over the years ahead.

At 29 the Charlton goalkeeper is far from the youngest of the players who are likely to make their names at international level over the course of the next World Cup campaign but his performance last night nevertheless showed that another phase in the evolution of Mick McCarthy's side will now get under way.

That wasn't much consolation to the Manchester born goalkeeper last night, though, as he wrestled with the fact that the biggest night of his career had ended in bitter disappointment rather than the victory celebrations which his own showing had merited.

"It's difficult to think about any of that now," he said.

"Right now I can't take any consolation from the fact that I might have turned in a half-decent performance. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll be able to, but right now I just feel part of a team that hasn't made it to where we were hoping to get."

The most frustrating part for Kiely was the feeling that over the two legs it might have been different. There were chances in the first leg and there was the belief going into the away leg that a place in the finals could still be salvaged.

"When you come to a place like this it's always going to tough but if you can be solid and hard to beat then you have something to build on and you're always going to be in with a chance.

"I thought we did manage that this evening and at the other end we tried to build something but the bounce we needed never came and we just ran out of time in the end."

Asked if he had found the atmosphere in the tightly packed stadium hard to deal with he shrugged and said: "I said it the other day, the atmosphere can be intimidating, but we were well able for it. The fact is that the game is decided on the pitch and that's where we just couldn't come up with what we needed to win it and go through."