Soccer/ Euro 3008 qualifier: The Irish squad returned to Dublin yesterday with some pride but no points to show for their efforts in Stuttgart on Saturday night.

Steve Staunton insisted the performance had been all he could have asked for from his players and was clearly taking heart from an altogether more composed display than the one produced against the Netherlands.

Contrary to his subsequent assertions that his side should have taken something from the game, though, the visitors were generally second best to a German side that appeared to play within itself while still dominating the majority of the game.

Cheered on by some 8,000 supporters in the stadium, while perhaps as many again watched the game in the city centre, the Irish could at least claim to have been unlucky with regard to the manner of their defeat. Officially, it seems, the goal will be credited to Lukas Podolski but the Bayern Munich striker's shot from the edge of the area appeared to be heading wide until Robbie Keane stuck out a boot and deflected the ball rather cruelly past an entirely wrongfooted Shay Given.

Elsewhere, the Czechs secured an expected victory over the Welsh although, like the Germans, only by a single goal margin, while the Slovaks underlined why they, rather than the Irish, start this campaign as the group's third seeds by crushing Cyprus 6-1 in Bratislava.

At the Gottlieb-Daimler Stadium, though, German coach Joachim Loew expressed satisfaction with the fact his side had made a winning start to the new campaign while admitting that his players had had to work hard for a win that sets them safely on course for one of the two automatic qualifying spots in this group. "It was a difficult birth," observed the 41 year-old, "but even a difficult birth can produce a beautiful child."

Staunton, meanwhile, was satisfied with the performance but maintained his side had been hard done by on the night with the Louthman pointing to the goal that decided the game as a setback that simply couldn't have been legislated for.

"It was a cruel blow for us, very cruel considering the shot was going wide," he said. "It was a soft free-kick but that's football, you get a kick in the nuts when you are down there." Weighing up his side's prospects for the future Staunton suggested his team would be "okay if we work as hard as we did tonight".

On the brighter side, the scale of Slovakia's win does point to the likelihood of a more rewarding night's work in Cyprus at the start of next month. Staunton will have to wait until at least the end of this week to discover whether he will be able to watch that game from the sideline after being sent to the stand by Saturday's Spanish match official for the manner in which he protested some of the referee's decisions.

A one-match ban is the penalty most likely to be imposed by Uefa's disciplinary committee when it considers the manager's case.