Managers' Reaction: When reminded on Tuesday that last night's game against Switzerland would be his 21st in charge of the senior Irish team Brian Kerr wondered if he'd be given a present to mark the occasion.

Well, he was, and judging by his demeanour when he arrived in the media centre in Basel after the game, he was content with the gift-wrapped World Cup qualifying point presented to him by his team at full-time last night.

The team would, he'd said all week, go in search of a win, because that was its nature, but a draw would be satisfactory enough, bearing in mind, he'd reminded his audience, that winning your home games and picking up a point here and there "on the road" usually proves sufficient in this qualifying business.

The "birthday boy", then, had the look of a man happy with the night's result - if not the overall performance.

"I said before I would be happy with a point - it's one more than we got out of two matches against Switzerland last time, so yeah, happy enough.

"We can do better, though, there's no doubt about that. We made plenty of chances in the first half but gave away plenty too, too many. We were a little cavalier at times, but it was a decent enough performance. A few of our players weren't 100 per cent fit, match fit, we'd a few missing, so that didn't help.

"At times we seemed too intent on making chances, we weren't tight enough. What had I at half time? About 12 minutes? Well, I did a lot of talking then, about the tightness of the unit, about options when we had the ball, I tried to correct a few things that weren't right. It was better in the second half, we had reasonable control, a better balance."

What of the bookings? "Very harsh. And a little one-sided. But you expect that in away games, referees get affected by the crowd. I'm not sure it happens at Lansdowne, mind. But considering we had a couple of early bookings I thought we kept our discipline well."

One of the players to receive a yellow card, Roy Keane, was, of course, playing his first competitive game for Ireland since Iran at Lansdowne Road two years ago. Earlier in the week Kerr had spoken of Keane's off-the-field contribution to the squad since his return. How'd he do on the field last night? "He got on fine. He needed a game, he's been out for three weeks. He sharpened up as the game went on, made some crucial tackles, a few storming runs, he did fine.

"Shay (Given) made a fantastic save late on, when the pressure was on for the last 10 minutes, but we held on well."

Keane v Vieira had been billed as the central attraction for Ireland's game in Paris next month but the showdown won't happen after the French captain was sent off last night against the Faroe Islands. Kerr's reaction to the news? Was it a boost? "Not as much of a boost as the point tonight. Listen, it's not that big a deal, France have loads of players, they'll just pick another one."

Swiss manager Kobi Kuhn, meanwhile, was asked if he was disappointed with his team's failure to make it two wins out of two in the group. "A little bit," he said, "but if you look at the game the result seems okay. Yes, we had several chances to win, but so did Ireland - and we both missed them. So maybe a draw was the fair result."

Asked through his interpreter if he thought Ireland was a stronger team than a year ago he said "yes, much stronger" - but the interpreter then added: "I am not exaggerating, maybe Ireland is the strongest in the group". Stronger than France? At that point Kuhn corrected the interpreter, who withdrew the compliment. Just stronger than last time, then, but not stronger than France. The interpreter apologised.

Nobody was forgetting Israel, though. Since Saturday Kerr has been busy pointing out that Israel's draw in Paris simply underlined the foolishness of the assumption that this group was all about Ireland and Switzerland scrapping for second place behind France.

So, just 720 minutes, plus added time, of World Cup qualifying football between now and Germany 2006. Say it quickly and it sounds like this Irish team might just be en route. Reflect a little and, well, as Kerr cautions, it's a long, long journey.

(But, whisper it: the journey's started promisingly enough).