The reality is we're still in with a shout

Manager's reaction: Brian Kerr comes out of the bandroom. We push him up against the wall. We point tape recorders at him. He doesn't sugar coat it.

We do that for him.

"Yeah," he says, "we've still got a chance. We've won two home games but when you start so well and you're two-nil up and you should go on to win, of course, afterwards you're disappointed. The reality is that we're still in with a shout, we still have a good team.

"There's a lot of positive things about the team still. We're unbeaten in the group, we have four games to go, two here, two away. It's very open. We're waiting on somebody to win a match from the top four teams. Nobody has won yet."

It was a night for distraction. At Kerr's official press conference inside the walls of the bandroom we dwelt overly long on the injustices inflicted upon us by that Greek referee and that time-wasting, double-dealing, no good, back-stabbing Israeli goalie, Dudu Aouate. We didn't talk so much about how Israel got back into a position where they found such a destructive style of playing and time-wasting to be profitable.

We lost a two-nil lead at home against an inferior football team. Kyros Vassaras and Aouate merely provided us with imperfect alibis.

There's another game on Wednesday, though, and three more in the autumn and it's the nature of sports people to keep looking ahead until there is nothing left to see.

"I won't fault the ref and the players," said Kerr. "At times we were a little bit gung-ho towards the end. We could do no more. The 14 who played gave their best. A few minutes before half-time we were too casual at times. We should have stuck exactly to the way we played for the first 25 minutes."

Most people agreed. The descent into madness began after 25 minutes when Robbie Keane came off and Graham Kavanagh went on. At that time Ireland were rampant and should have been four up.

It was a conservative substitution, though, necessitating lots of shuttling. Duffer moved to unconvincingly partner Clinton Morrison. The energy of Kevin Kilbane was redirected to the wings. Kavanagh has fine qualities but he doesn't swash any buckles or do rampaging or pillaging.

Did Kerr think of other options? Inserting Stephen Elliot as a straight swap with Keane, for instance?

"Yeah, I thought of them." And?

"You make the call. That's what you do."

And so at half-time it was two-all whereas six minutes earlier it had been two-nil. Like flustered lawyers we went rifling through the records for precedent. We found what seemed to be a winner. Three-one up in Poznan, Poland, in 1991 in a game that ended 3-3. But that was Poznan. This was now.

Kerr's face looked like a grey cloud. We offered him some silver lining. Roy will be back to smite The Faroes. Cheer up. We thought briefly about the fact that The Faroes had on Saturday come within 15 minutes of a result against Switzerland. We shuddered and got on with it.

Roy. We missed him, didn't we?

"He's a player we would like to have, all right. You would like to have him for every match. There's a lot of stuff going on in the team. They are still learning how it has to be, when you have a lead, how it has to be at international level. The average age of the team is quite young. Roy didn't play tonight. We have him back and we'll have him for the four games."

The other stuff is all moot and extraneous. Appeals over the Andy O'Brien injustice. Complaints about the referee. Whines about time-wasting and injury feigning. We lost our way. Is there a way back?

"We had 23 players here. Roy has been in since Friday. Roy had a long season and I had no problem. I gave him the extra time. Like anyone who didn't actually play he was trying to lift it. He spoke in the dressing-room tonight, he said a few words at the end of it. He was trying to say positive things. There's good spirit.

"I remembered back in France in the dressing-room when we were all quite pleased, he said there'll be a few bumps in this group yet. He was right. When reality sets in and we see the table and the possibilities I think we'll get to believing that we can still qualify."

Have to believe. Have to move forward.