Stephen Kenny believes that the momentum that his team are building helps to offer an understanding of the manager's new approach to international football.
Seven games unbeaten now for this Republic of Ireland side, as Kenny’s team are starting to get the recognition and respect that was evidently lacking throughout the opening ten games of the new regime.
The unbeaten run stretches back to that last-gasp defeat to Portugal in September, and includes impressive performances against Portugal, Serbia and now Belgium, while also including high-scoring victories against some lesser ranked sides.
And onwards for the 2022 calendar ahead, which begins with another home fixture against Lithuania on Tuesday night.
Kenny is building a team to compete in the next edition of the relatively recent Nations League, which sees Ireland take on Scotland, Armenia and Ukraine, home and away, in June and then into September.
The manager is then hoping that a successful Nations League campaign with then take his side into the important 2023 campaign, which will include the qualifying games ahead of Euro 2024.
"How much value do I place on it?" pondered the manager, when asked about how important momentum was to him.
"Well it's better to have positive results than negative, but it’s good to have good performances like that, for sure. It reinforces the message that we’re giving and people see you’re getting success from that.
"It reinforces belief and that can be powerful when you do that, when you play against top-class international players."
"It’s a tough group with Scotland and Ukraine, but we’re looking to improve all of the time, we’re getting better and we’re building a squad and we want to try to do ourselves justice in that."
And following the impressive performance and result against Belgium on Saturday night, the manager has urged his players to continue build the momentum and take it into those competitive fixtures throughout the summer, having previously stated that his aim was to win the Nations League group.
"We wanted the players to do that justice, particularly against the world number one, it was important," said Kenny.
"To have a near-capacity crowd was amazing and the passion in the crowd, the players fed off that.
"We wanted to keep our unbeaten run going and the good run we’ve had over the last 10, 11 games now, we wanted to keep that going.
"We’ve played some good teams – Serbia, Portugal twice and Belgium – so it was important to keep that going and try to get a momentum because the Nations League games in June and September are important and we want to build momentum for that."
Reflecting on the Belgium game, the manager said that he was disappointed with the two goals that his side conceded against the world number one-ranked side, however, he said that he was not concerned by his set-piece defensive record, when asked about the Hans Vanaken header, which came from a corner.
"The second goal was nothing like the Serbia goal," said Kenny, when asked was he concerned having conceded a similar goal to Serbia in the Lansdowne Road 1-1 encounter. "They are not really comparable, the goals, at all.
"It was the second goal conceded from a corner kick in 20 games. We pride ourselves on that and it wasn't good enough."
Meanwhile, Alan Browne, who scored the vital equaliser at Lansdowne Road to secure the 2-2 draw with Belgium, believes that Ireland have the quality to enjoy a successful Nations League campaign.
The Preston North End midfielder came off the bench to maintain Ireland’s unbeaten run with a perfectly executed header in the 86th minute, and the Cork man feels that the team have turned a corner heading into the 2022 calendar year.
"Our performances over the last year or so, I know we came under a lot of criticism at the start, but I think we’ve turned a page now and we’re getting the results to match the performances," said Browne, speaking at the post match press conference.
"Our performances even from the get-go have been really good, we just didn’t have the results to match them. When they go hand-in-hand, it makes for an all-round good day.
"We’ll be going into the campaign full of belief and with a winning mentality that’s been bred into us.
"It’s definitely realistic that we can go and win it."
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