Ireland's chances of qualifying for next year's Olympics in Sydney all but evaporated at Tolka Park last night where the lack of firepower in Ian Evans' side and a couple of bouts of sleepy defending allowed Yugoslavia to pick up a disappointingly easy victory.
In what was an open enough contest, the memorable chances on target were few. But, with matters more or less evenly matched around the other areas of the pitch, the visitors made their superiority in the last 18 yards tell all too convincingly.
In the first half the locals saw enough of the ball to pose a far greater threat around the Yugoslav goal, but the striking partnership of Alan Lee and Daryl Clare failed to seriously trouble their markers.
Across the centre, where their visitors played five, the Irish should have been able to build on solid performances from Barry Quinn and Stephen McPhail, but on the flanks it was the visitors who looked the better throughout, particularly on Ireland's right where Martin Rowlands, having been lucky to be only booked for a terrible challenge on Vladimir Matijasevic after 18 minutes, was terribly quiet.
Still, it was the Brentford winger who went closest to finding the net for his increasingly goalshy team. Trailing to an Adrian Djokaj goal, the Republic were pressing forward and looked to be getting well on top. The build-up play looked to be much more controlled, too, and if Rowlands's shot, which took a significant deflection, had not been well stopped by Vladan Kujovic it would have been memorable - even if it would have been only number two in this team's last five outings.
At the back, meanwhile, the Irish coped well. For the most part the central partnership of Richard Dunne and Andy O'Brien looked like one that was built on a rapidly expanding base of Premiership experience.
With the exception, meanwhile, of a couple of early scares for the full-backs, most notably when Robbie Ryan underplayed a header meant for Alex O'Reilly, there was really very little to concern the Ireland goalkeeper.
Dunne, as he does from time to time at club level, where only last week he was sent off for a couple of clumsy looking challenges, allowed a momentary lapse of concentration to overshadow what was otherwise a decent night's work.
The Dubliner's mistake, which led to the goal in the 56th minute, was appalling in its simplicity. The defender attempted to shield a harmless looking ball out of play and failed to react as Veljko Paunovic nipped in around him and cut it back for the waiting Adrian Djokaj. From less than six yards out the substitute could probably have stuck it away in half a dozen different ways, but the first-time flick with the outside of his left boot was as neat a way as any of slipping it past the helpless O'Reilly.
Though the Irish steadily improved after it, with Barry Conlon and Anthony Folan coming on to cause more problems for the Yugoslav defence, that first goal effectively killed of their chances of winning the game. It also, for that matter, more or less scuppered their hopes of topping a group in which Croatia now lead them by eight points with only one game more played ahead of Friday evening's outing in Zagreb.
When Djokaj headed home his second, within a matter of seconds of Rowlands's attempt on goal, even the fighting spirit that many of the players had displayed while trying to battle back to level terms disappeared.
Upon hearing the final whistle the Yugoslavs, whose position in the group, though far better than Ireland's, could hardly be said to be commanding, promptly launched a bit of a celebration out on the pitch. The Irish players could only sit and glumly look on.
At that stage they seemed to realise, like the rest of us, that a trip down under is now a possibility only in the same way that subtracting five from four is. But Ian Evans insisted that there are, over the weeks to come, "plenty more points to play for".
Quinn, one of the night's better performers, agreed, though he conceded his side should have coped with what was thrown at them more effectively. But he maintained that wins in Croatia, Malta and Macedonia are all within the realms of possibility.
On the strength of what has gone on so far, that appears a little fanciful. The sad part is that even if it came to pass it probably wouldn't be enough.
Republic of Ireland: O'Reilly (Northampton Town); Maybury (Leeds Utd), O'Brien (Bradford City), Dunne (Everton), Ryan (Millwall); Rowlands (Brentford), Quinn (Coventry City), McPhail (Leeds Utd), Mahon (Tranmere); Lee (Burnley), Clare (Grimsby). Subs: Conlon (York City) and Folan (Brentford) for Lee and Clare (60 mins), Barry Murphy (Preston NE) for Mahon (63 mins).
Yugoslavia: Kujovic; Obradovic, Tanasijevic, Vitakic; Dudic, Krivokapic, Matijasevic, Boskovic, Ocokoljic; Lazetic, Paunovic. Subs: Djokaj for Matojasevic (40 mins), Lalatovic for Ocokoljic (54 mins), Stolica for Paunovic (83 mins).
Referee: V Melnichuk (Ukraine).
