Ireland - 0 Luxembourg - 1, A painful day for the team.

When Ireland got a new manager last year there was plenty reason to be optimistic. While Stephan Kenny was not an experienced international manager, he had done great things with his past teams in the league of Ireland.

For too many years we had been tough to beat but boring to watch and rarely won matches. For too long it has been a painful experience to follow the national team and things need to change. Not too get worse.

It would be a big ask for anybody to change the culture and history of the football association but the timing was never going to be better. We had just discovered the corruption existing at the top levels of the FAI and people were being investigated and removed from positions. We have had a successful U21 team for the country so there is talent there somewhere.

We have failed to qualify for a major tournament since 2014 and the day of pumping the ball long and chasing it down are over. The previous managers of the international team didn't know any better but Kenny has brought his past teams to Europe and had them playing to compete. Not just to turn up.

That was 10 games ago for the team. Ten games with no win and 1 goal in the first 8. We were never prolific before this but this is a new level of being useless.

We all said he will need time. He has had more bad luck than any manager before him. Covid, injuries, travel issues. It has been a hard run but he did have them playing to a better standard than before. The problem is the result.

Against Slovakia last week the y played very well but had to use a 5th choice keeper getting his debut from a league 1 team. He was young, inexperienced and made a few fatal mistakes to lose the game. It's not his fault that he was out of his depth. He was called for his county and duly turned up to play. It was circumstances that made it necessary for him to play that did the real damage.

More bad luck and injuries.

I won't call for the managers head like all of the media outlets are doing this week as I can see the long term goal of building a young team that can play football. Something that we haven't had since the Roy Keane days of the 90's. We don't have those players to drive the culture yet so there will be more tough days ahead. This is one of the lowest points and we won't get to the next world cup. ( It's in Quatar anyway which wouldn't suit the Irish. Too much sun and not enough drink.)

It's better to accept that we won't be getting there early and see if Stephan Kenny can build a base for future teams to work from. Young exciting players that can use the ball and know how to win games.