SO, AFTER three hefty defeats back in 1982, New Zealand got their ever first point from a World Cup finals match in dramatic fashion yesterday. There was a good deal too for the Irish to be pleased about too after this game at the Royal Bafokeng stadium where Slovakia, rivals of ours in the next European Championship qualifying campaign, looked decidedly mediocre even before they threw away their narrow lead in the dying seconds of injury-time.

True, the Slovaks dominated and really should have made the game safe even before half-time but the more striking thing about this game was just how poor their opponents were, even if they do deserve great credit for grabbing their late equaliser rather than resigning themselves to defeat.

There was, of course, little enough to suggest the Kiwis would be any great shakes given that their route to the finals consisted of qualifying group success over Fiji, New Caledonia and Vanuatu followed by a 1-0 defeat of Bahrain in a two-legged play-off.

More puzzling on this evidence then, is how this Slovakian team could have won a European qualifying group to get here although it’s still possible this was simply a decidedly off-day and that they will step up a gear or two, as they’ll certainly need to, when they take on Paraguay and then Italy over the next 10 days or so.

In the end, they led here thanks to a well-taken goal by Lille striker Robert Vittek who stole in behind Winston Reid to head Stanislav Sestak’s long, curling cross from the right well beyond the outstretched arms of Mark Paston.

But, as manager Ricki Herbert noted happily afterwards, Reid redeemed himself in the 93rd minute to head home himself after the Slovaks and, in particular, Zdenko Strba and Jan Durica were caught napping by Shane Smeltz’s lofted ball from the left.

“It’s a small sporting tragedy for us,” observed Slovakian coach Vladimir Weiss afterwards. “We showed our nice side today and against Paraguay we need to fight for every ball.”

Weiss still sounded fairly angry as he spoke in contrast to Vittek who, a few moments early, had seemed rather more dejected. “I should have been really happy to be the first scorer of a goal for my country at a World Cup finals but instead there is still the disappointment of the last minute,” he said.

“Conceding a goal in the 94th minute is really a nightmare, it shouldn’t happen at this level but we have to keep our heads up because now there is another tough game to play.”

Remarkably, Vittek was speaking after collecting his man- of-the-match award which seemed odd because he actually played pretty poorly. Paston, a goalkeeper of decidedly limited ability, had been terribly fortunate only to be beaten once and a lot of his good luck was down to the fact that most of Slovakian chances fell to the striker who promptly squandered the vast majority of them.

The two best had been provided for him by manager Weiss’s son of the same name who, thanks to a combination of speed and trickery when running at defenders, had actually looked to be the outstanding player on the pitch for a spell before fading from view.

Building from midfield, the Europeans looked assured and inventive at times but their finishing was awful while their emphasis on attack allowed their opponents plenty of opportunities to hit them on the break.

Ricki Herbert’s men didn’t threaten much, although there were a couple of half chances, enough certainly to suggest a Slovakian defence built around Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel and including Marek Cech, the man who grabbed a late equaliser against Ireland in Bratislava three years ago, might be vulnerable.

The New Zealand coach reckoned afterwards that his players had done enough to merit their point while Rory Fallon, once a target for the FAI on the basis of his grandfather being from Longford, insists this might be the start of something much bigger.

“This is going to make waves in New Zealand,” he said, “but we know we can kick on and do even better. . . we believe we can do it. Italy will know all about us now. They’re a brilliant team, world champions . . . but we always believe we can win and we believe that we could have won today.”

Fallon’s confidence, it seems, derives at least as much from his strong religious faith as any detailed assessment of the respective strengths of two sides ranked 73 places apart by Fifa and when it is put to him that some of the Italians are reputed to be believers too he replies with a smile: “We’ll see who believes the most.”

Come Sunday, appropriately enough, we certainly will.