There can few more incongruous sights in sport than a footballer on the losing side being handed a bottle of champagne to mark a man-of-the-match performance and Shane Long looked in dismay as he tried to figure out to do with his prize while discussing how a larger one had been allowed to slip through the Irish team’s grasp.
“It’s fairly devastating, it would have been a big three points for us,” said the West Brom striker.
“After we got the second I thought we would go on, get a third and kick on.”
When that didn’t happen, he observed ruefully, “I suppose it’s a natural thing to do with 20 minutes to go to drop off and try to hold on to your lead (but) I think we invited a bit too much pressure. It’s a bit of a sucker punch for us.
“When it’s in your hands you need to make sure you hold on to it. It’s a devastating blow really because I thought we’d done enough to win that game.
“We can’t let it get us down too much,” he continued, however. “We will have to push on and get over it. It’s hard to take but we just have to pick ourselves up for the next one against the Faroe Islands, make sure of the three points there and then we have Austria and Sweden again . . . that’ll be another big week for us.”
A few yards away in the tunnel Séamus Coleman cited Long's first half back-heel as evidence of the sort of threat Ireland had managed to pose in front of the Austrian goal through a lively first half.
Shell-shocked
The Everton full back seemed similarly shell-shocked, though, as he tried to explain how Ireland surrendered a winning position. "Maybe we had the 2-1 lead and we were happy with that but they got us on the break. I don't know, really, it was just one of those things; he took a strike from the edge of the box, it took a deflection and went in.
“Maybe they were piling on a bit of pressure. Maybe it was just destined to come but I thought we did alright on the night, their keeper made a great save from a corner and I thought we were going to end up with three points.
“It’s really heartbreaking but that’s football unfortunately; the old cliché but we’ve got to pick ourselves up. . . we can’t afford any more mistakes in the group really, that’s the main thing now.”
