Having looked to have been in his element in front of his own country’s press on the occasions that Ireland played Italy, Giovanni Trapattoni looked a little deflated in Tuesday when only a handful of local media turned out to cover his press conference.

Last night he got the platform he had clearly expecting as the press piled in to hear what he had to say about his side’s latest result on the road. Predictably, he looked well satisfied.

“I have reason to be happy tonight,” he said, “because as I said to you that this friendly game was a difficult one for my team because of the past and the fact that England are a great team. But our young players need the experience of playing against great players and they did well tonight."

'Full of enthusiasm'
"For me, McCarthy, Coleman and Shane Long were three of the best players on the pitch. I saw them in the dressing room and they were tense but I told them, it's only 90 minutes of football. I didn't want to add to the pressure but they started the game well; full of enthusiasm."

Seán St Ledger’s attempted intervention for Frank Lampard’s goal certainly showed, he admitted, more enthusiasm than experience but the defender overall, he insisted, had had “a super game” despite a slight injury, while Glenn Whelan, he suggested, was exhausted after a long season. “We need to give them a rest now because the game against the Faroes is our biggest target.”

Hodgson, needless to say, will come in for a bit of stick this morning as the team touches down in Brazil ahead of Sunday’s game in Rio, that’s simply the way it works when England fail to win at home.

Applied themselves
England, of course, have beaten better sides than Ireland in friendlies since he took over but the manager pointed to the way in which last night's opponents applied themselves.

“They made us really hard for our two or three chances,” he said, “and then, when they came, the goalkeeper has made some really good saves. I knew it was a tough match but perhaps it was a tougher match that I had imagined it would be

“I’m disappointed with the result, of course, but I can’t be too disappointed with the way that we tried to win the game. I thought we worked hard and defended well from the front but so did the Irish; Keane and Long worked their socks off in the first 60 minutes to make sure we didn’t get a numerical advantage.

Sternness
The Brazilians will, he said, provide a "different kind of challenge" at the weekend but he was happy with both the sternness of the test here and the way that his players dealt with it.

“The only thing that stops this being a really good thing for me is the fact that we didn’t win the game. We played well but the Irish sought to put a spanner in the works tonight and they did it very well.”