Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill admits his team didn’t play well in their 1-0 World Cup qualifier win over Georgia - but he was quick to defend the performance.
Captain Seamus Coleman ensured a narrow, nervy Aviva Stadium win on Thursday following an uninspiring night of football.
The first half was particularly disappointing, though the Boys in Green did pick it up after the break and as well as the goal Ireland created chances with James McClean having a goal disallowed and hitting the crossbar.
“We’re delighted with the win and obviously we can play better,” said O’Neill, speaking to RTÉ Sport.
“I think the players have plenty of confidence, but when you don’t start well and allow the opposition on your own pitch too much time on the ball it takes a while to get back on track. It took us most of the first 45 minutes to do that.
“We pressed. First of all you have to try to press, then you have to try get close enough to the opposition when you do press and we weren’t doing that.
“We came out in the second half and pressed and had a lot of the ball in the second half because we did press.”
O’Neill also had praise for his goal-scoring captain Coleman, though pointed out that Ireland have struggled to beat Georgia in qualifiers in the past.
“Coleman was excellent and he pulled out that game for us,” said the Derry man. “We’ve had tough games against Georgia against qualifiers in the past, in the last campaign.
“They’ve played very well against us and I’ve said it before - if they had a natural goalscorer in their teams they’d cause a lot too teams a lot of trouble.”
Ireland will be without Jeff Hendrick for Sunday’s Group D after the Burnely man picked up a yellow card which O’Neill termed ‘innocuous’.
Robbie Brady is also a doubt having had to go off with a head injury in the second half, which left him requiring treatment and he left the field on a stretcher on his way to hospital.
When asked would Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter be called back into the squad having missed the Georgia game due to injury, O’Neill was non-committal.
“I think it might be difficult because he’s trying to get over a hamstring problem at the moment," he said. "It’s not pulled, it’s very tight, but I’ll have a think about that this evening.”
