The senior team have had their good days, the Irish teenagers theirs too. For reasons best known to themselves, however, the Irish Under-21s continue to shy away from the international big time with a certain amount of flair.
Over the years (21, as it happens) Ireland had won just 14 of their 68 outings at this level, but their start to this UEFA qualifying process had briefly held out the hope of at least a credible challenge for a place in a European finals.
Those hopes were more or less shattered at Terryland Park last night, however, where Ian Evans's side failed dismally to break down a team who suffered the humiliation, back in November down Valetta way, of being utterly dismantled by Malta.
During the closing stages there were loud echoes of the defeat by Sweden in Birr six weeks ago, with the Irish long on creativity around the box but desperately short on ruthlessness.
Even in the opening minutes, the Irish had made it clear that they were out to get forward, with the home side earning five corners in the first 10 minutes and having a couple of half decent cracks at goal.
If their early showing up front had the effect of encouraging the Irish bench, though, things at the other end must have worried Evans and company even then; the local defence looked edgy every time the Macedonians got the ball forward.
A couple of years back, when these teams last came up against each other in a qualifying group, Ireland won 4-0 home and away. This time through that opening half the run of play suggested something closer to 4-4, although neither side's finishing was quite up to delivering that level of entertainment.
The strikers, in fact, were not up to delivering anything of consequence despite the game being as open a contest as you could hope for at any level of international competition. At both ends there were chances but very few were on target, and only in the closing 25 minutes was either goalkeeper called upon to make a memorable stop.
Then, at least, it was the Irish who were going closer to grabbing a winner; Alan Mahon's curling, 30-yard free three minutes from time which forced Dejan Spaljevic into a fine save just inside his right hand post was probably the closest the home side came to sneaking the extra two points. Mahon's set pieces had been the most consistent threat to the Macedonian resistance throughout the game, but, aside from one Colin Hawkins header which Spaljevic again did well to parry, the crosses were put to little use around the six-yard box. When the locals finally managed to create a really clear-cut opportunity from play, Stephen McPhail's normally reliable left foot let him down just inside the area.
Asked to identify something positive that had come out of the encounter, Evans pointed to the performance, on his competitive international debut, of Brentford's right-sided midfielder Martin Rowlands who, repeatedly coming away second best in his physical battle with Vaslav Simonovski, did show some promise for the future.
Elsewhere there was only disappointment. And it might, in fact, have been worse, with Alex O'Reilly and Dave Worrell only just, at one point, keeping Vladimir Spasovski's chip from the edge of the area out of the goal.
In the end, though, it was another grim enough performance by an Irish team at this level and one which the senior panel will want to better by a long way at Lansdowne Road this evening.
Republic of Ireland : O'Reilly (West Ham); Boxall (Brentford), Hawkins (St Patrick's Athletic), Ferguson (Coventry), Worrell (Dundee utd); Rowlands (Brentford), Quinn (Coventry), McPhail (Leeds Utd), Mahon (Tranmere); Grant (Stockport), Fenn (Tottenham). Subs: Molloy (St Patrick's Athletic) for Fenn (66 mins), McClare (Barnsley) for Quinn (78 mins).
FYR Macedonia: Spaljevic; Stamenovski, Mitreski, Simonovski; Elmazovski, Dimitrovski, Novakov, Ignatov, Petrov; M Trajcev, V Spasovski. Subs: Toleski for Stamenovski (72 mins), Sivevski for M Trajcev (73 mins), D Spasovski for Ignatov (86 mins).
Referee: S Braga (Latvia).
