Mick McCarthy was surprised as much as disappointed by the way his team defended as they crashed to the heaviest defeat of his 68 games in charge over the past six years. It was the first time a Republic team had conceded four goals since losing 4-1 to Denmark in a 1985 World Cup qualifier and it got Ireland's Euro 2004 Group 10 qualifying campaign off to the worst possible start.
Afterwards, the Irish manager admitted: "It's been a bad day at the office for us in terms of defending. That's not us. We don't start like that normally. We usually go forward and play at a high tempo to pen them in. I'm disappointed with the goals we've conceded. We don't normally concede goals like that. We came here to try to win the game and we believed we could but we gave a poor goal away and suddenly found ourselves two down. After that we were taking chances and chasing the game but we had to do that. I would sooner sit here having lost 4-2 and given it a good go than not give it a go."
Gary Doherty and Clinton Morrison scored the goals that gave Ireland hope - respectively make it 2-1 and 3-2 - but McCarthy acknowledged that his men couldn't hope to get away with the bad defending that left them with a mountain to climb. He added: "We've scored two goals and I wouldn't expect to do that away from home and get beaten under normal circumstances. But there's nothing we can do about it now. We have to concentrate on our next game. It's now about motivation for all of us and winning that game at home (against Switzerland in October)."
Filed by Shane Murray
