Group D: It seems a very long time ago now but when RTÉ television wanted to promote its coverage of Ireland's meeting with Chile last year, it included a clip of Eamon Dunphy hailing the win over Sweden as the dawn of better times for the Irish team under its new manager, Steve Staunton.

Needless to say, the honeymoon was brief and by yesterday the current Ireland boss had joined his two immediate predecessors in being dismissed by the Irish game's foremost professional controversialist as a "yellow pack" manager.

Now, if football punditry had an equivalent to The Fifteen Acres it would surely be populated by just the sort of people whose criticism of an international manager includes the observation: "He looks like someone in the Phoenix Park."

That, though, was one element of Dunphy's critique of Staunton after Wednesday's defeat. Asked yesterday about potential successors, the former international mentioned Stephen Kenny, a young and gifted manager who enjoyed successful spells with Longford, Bohemians and Derry before moving last year to Dunfermline, where, to be fair, he has yet to prove himself.

Hopefully, Kenny will indeed eventually emerge as a credible candidate for the job, though it's perhaps worth noting that at this point he has achieved less than Brian Kerr had when he was appointed to succeed that other "yellow packer" Mick McCarthy.

The sort of criticism that has rained down on Staunton since the loss in Prague, however, suggests men like Kenny would be wise to give the position a wide berth.

The fact is it now appears only those with an already formidable record in management can survive a bad start in the Ireland job, and they, if the last recruitment drive is anything to go by, are either unaffordable or completely uninterested.

Staunton is far from flawless as a manager. Still, it seems a pity those who argued Kerr should get two full campaigns in order to do himself justice would have the Louthman pushed out before he has completed one.

The manager's problems largely stem from last autumn, when his side turned in an utterly hapless performance and lost 5-2 to Cyprus.

Had Staunton walked or been sacked the next day it's hard to imagine anyone would have grumbled. But having been spared by John Delaney (whose own standing has become closely intertwined with the man he appointed) and mindful perhaps of how difficult it might prove to secure another position, he battled on.

The team then embarked on a nine-match unbeaten run that included a mixed bag of displays but a couple of decent wins. Some genuine progress in terms of squad development appeared to have been made too. But none of that seemed to count for much as the final whistle sounded in Prague.

Essentially, the Irish had travelled needing four points or more from two games, and Staunton's decisions have been cited as having contributed to them securing just one instead.

In Bratislava, the introduction of two defensive midfielders simply incapable of doing the job required of them certainly didn't help.

The scale of the criticism after Wednesday's game is disproportionate, though. The most obvious misjudgement was to leave Aiden McGeady in the team when the defensive side of his game is so weak.

Without Damien Duff, Stephen Ireland or Steve Finnan, however, Staunton faced some difficult choices as he prepared to face the group's top seeds, a team with a handful of really world-class players, away from home.

While he might have called it better, not least by playing the two full backs on opposite sides, there was some logic to what he did. Perhaps the most straightforward thing would have been to return Kevin Kilbane to central midfield while starting Stephen Hunt on the left and Andy Reid on the right.

The clamour after Saturday, though, had been to use the Charlton midfielder in central midfield and if McGeady was to be dropped that meant using either one of two predominantly left-footed players - Hunt or Kilbane - on the right or turning to Jonathan Douglas, who had been so disappointing after coming on at the weekend.

In the end Staunton placed too much faith in a player whose range of gifts is not generally thought to include an ability to contain men of Marek Jankulovski's attacking strength and speed.

When change was forced upon him and Hunt was brought on for the injured John O'Shea it did impact positively upon the game.

Still, not even teams of the Czech Republic's calibre often dominate entire games in the way they did the opening stages of Wednesday's - and it is surely overstating things to attribute the entire shift in the balance of play to the arrival onto the field of the Reading midfielder.

Those who would hang the manager over his decision not to start Hunt might also consider that the 26-year-old, with his lunge to win a nothing ball near the halfway line, exposed himself to the possibility of dismissal, even if a better referee would have settled for a yellow card.

In any case, the Irish battled well with 10 men through the closing half an hour and might have secured a draw late on had Paul McShane taken his chance.

In short, Staunton has made and continues to make mistakes but he has received little credit for what good he has done and there are those among his critics who like to have their cake and eat it. At this stage, the time for a balanced review of his performance is at the end of the campaign, which is only a few weeks away.

In the meantime, Staunton will find himself in something of a bind.

Ideally, a manager in his position should already be starting to think about the next campaign, but he simply cannot afford to do so lest he further jeopardise his prospects of being around for it.

At present the team is on course to outperform its seeding by finishing third and to achieve a third-place ranking for the World Cup draw, and the manager must be careful, in particular, to ensure that the second of those goals is secured.

After that there will be time to properly reflect on the events of the last two years. By seeking to force the issue more immediately, Staunton's critics risk nudging the FAI towards a repeat of the mistake they made when dispensing with Kerr: failing to be sure that they can conjure up someone who can do the job any better.

Meanwhile, O'Shea underwent a scan yesterday on the knee problem that forced him to hobble off the pitch in the 38th minute on Wednesday night. The Manchester United defender appeared to sustain the injury when his studs caught the turf and Staunton added after the game: "John will go for a scan but it could be a little tear in the knee ligament."