One day we'll say it was easy

Beneath Nasser Al-Johar's black baseball cap and above his bushy black moustache was a story. His eyes were a tale unto themselves. He spoke bravely, but his eyes flickered nervously. It's a strain this World Cup.This wonderful, beautiful World Cup is a killer. Tom Humphries  reflects on a watershed for Mick McCarthy, and how his team - eventually - negotiated the rapids

Nasser Al-Johar is the first Saudi to manage his country in the World Cup. Today he faces what is described as "an interrogation" from members of the royal family as to what went wrong here in Japan. And something went wrong for the Asian champions. Played Three; Lost Three. Conceded 12; Scored 0. It is a record that needs some explaining.

Al-Johar didn't attempt to explain. He reached for context. Yesterday, don't forget, two teams went out of the competition. Neither had won a game, neither had scored a goal. France and Saudi Arabia! And what's more Saudi Arabia had beaten Senegal and Denmark in friendlies.

Meanwhile, having tossed that one out Al-Johar reached out to the populace. "I apologise to the fans and the nation for these results. I promise to do my best in the future. It was a small mistake that caused these results. We will avoid it in the future. We will develop everything relating to football in Saudi Arabia to help his Highness and his loyal deputy. We are going to rebuild our team again to get good results in the future."

Saudi Arabia had gone out in style. If you're going to go out why not with a three-goal defeat and a schoolboy howler from your keeper?

We had stumbled on. We Irish don't do things in style and sometimes we just don't do them at all. For long periods last night looked like being one of the latter nights. It ended up being one of the former and that was sufficient.

Twelve years ago we stumbled out of our group in Italy. Four years later we limped past Norway in a scoreless draw to escape again. And yesterday? Having set ourselves up for a chance to strut and swagger like showhorses we ended up looking for a while like spavined mules.

Niall Quinn, that brave old gentleman, was summoned from his rocking chair again and leaving down his glass of Buckfast Tonic wine he set to doing the spadework.

Soon we were in new territory. Two goals up! You could get to like the feeling. A howler from their goalkeeper and suddenly Damani Al-Duffer is in a position to get richer than the Sheikh of Araby. Before our eyes the wrinkles fell from Mick McCarthy's face. He was young again.

For the past few days the strain has been written on those gruff Barnsley features. Gone has been the serene but earnest Mick McCarthy who arrived in Saipan and managed to get through that tumultuous week without losing his temper or showing any fraying around the edges.

The jests and the one-liners were gone now. And with reason. If Ireland had stalled last night the great churning storm cloud of recrimination and blame which is floating up there since the Roy Keane business would have burst open. And this time there would have been no holds barred and nowhere to shelter. Everything that hasn't been said would have needed to be said and it would be have hard, nigh impossible to say that Keane's absence hadn't hurt or hobbled us.

Eaten bread is soon forgotten and even two fine draws against good-quality World Cup teams would have been erased from the national memory if the team hadn't consummated the promise of those two games.

We, after all, have a record in World Cups. Three excursions now and we have never gotten mired in the first round. We take it for granted a little and forget that there are countries like last night's opponents for whom the horizon ends after the third match. McCarthy, having inflated the national mood with two games which mixed some promise with some heroism, needed to deliver last night if he was ever to win the argument about the banishment of Keane.

McCarthy's edginess was transfused into the body of his team. They started anxiously but aggressively and after just seven minutes Robbie Keane became the first Irishman to score two goals in World Cup finals and the first Irishman to score respectably for his gymnastics routine. And Ireland looked at each other and wondered what next. And on the bench (well off it mostly) McCarthy railed and fumed and screamed like you've never seen before. Six years and failure here would have been the moment he was judged on.

Out on the field Ian Harte was in some trouble. He has, said the manager, been suffering from a sore knee and a sore toe but the manner in which the poor lad trudged through the mixed zone afterwards told its own story. He has a sore spirit at the moment too.

Kevin Kilbane in front of him was powerless apparently to protect Harte and only a few of Shay Given's routine miracles were keeping the Irish in front. The momentum had all gone.

The only good news was that seeping through from Shizuoka, where the Germans and the Cameroonians were having a ding-dong punctuated by shemozzles and a little football.

Half-time in the Irish dressing-room is like the accident and emergency room of the spirit these days. Every time they come in they need to remind themselves what they are here for, what they have been through and what they want. Yesterday yet again they came in with their bottoms hanging perilously over the whirring bacon slicer.

"Yeah some things were said," said Mark Kinsella afterwards. McCarthy himself said that everybody needed settling down. This in itself is progress. A few years ago after what might be termed the first great disaster of Macedonia the backroom staff associated with the team were inclined to despair. There were no dressing-room voices. Everybody held their peace respectfully. They needed to grow some leaders.

When the Irish came back out we saw the proof of what has developed since that day in Skopje. Staunton and Breen organise and cajole like old-fashioned barking centre halves. They have both been wonderful through this tournament and last night each gave a little cameo of their especial skills. Staunton played the sweetest 50-yard left-foot pass from the centre circle to pick out Gary Kelly for the cross that made Keane's goal.

After the break Staunton swung a free in which Breen nipped onto, steering it home from the outside of the boot with a centre forward's confidence.

Gary Kelly has been a revelation. He barged his way into the centre of McCarthy's thoughts having been as marginal as the number 18 on his back. Last night he ran himself into the ground and whatever was on offer for the Saudis on our left flank, there was nothing at all doing on the right.

Kelly enjoys special freedoms of course because he plays in front of Steve Finnan, who has shown himself to be world class these past three games.

So the second half commenced. Harte had been taken away into therapy. Quinn was on. It looked as if Ireland had gone three-four-three again but Kevin Kilbane spent most of the half doing a passable imitation of a full back while Damien Duff drifted back to his homelands out on the left wing .

"In the second half, Duffer did great," says McCarthy. "A lot of people think left wing is his best position, possibly it is, but he gives us a different option when he plays up front for us."

And that will be a conundrum for McCarthy to consider when he plans for next Sunday in Suwon. Niall Quinn doesn't have an hour and 30 minutes of top-class football in him. Duff does better the further left he drifts. Clinton Morrison is scarcely mentioned in dispatches.

If faced with the arthritic pace of Hierro and Nadal on Sunday McCarthy will surely take his chances on Duff and Keane being tossed around again like rag dolls and hope the refereeing is more sympathetic than last night.

Onwards then to Suwon, a fortress town in Korea. And as the Irish move on the fortress mentality becomes more apparent. Today the team fly to Seoul, their wives and families fly back to Europe.

We are into that part of the voyage that is unplanned and spontaneous. The land of nosecond chances, moving towards the heart of the greatest show on earth.