ROME wasn't built in a day. Far from assuming the air of a defeated and dejected man in the aftermath of his first outing as Republic of Ireland manager, Mick McCarthy felt vindicated by his new approach these things being relative.

"I'm disappointed with the result, and that we got beat. But I was encouraged by the performance and I'm pleased with the performance,, especially in the second half."

He didn't ascribe the defeat to the tactics. "I thought the first goal we could have cleared, it's ended up with a bit of a ricochet and Kanchelskis provides a bit of magic and it was a wonderful strike."

"The second goal, I was actually on my way to sit down so I didn't see it. I've just seen it on the tape. It came from a short corner. It was a mite too easy. He beat Mark Kennedy easily and we can't let that happen, but then again it was a wonderful strike."

Asked was there any other disappointing aspects to the display, McCarthy said "Not really, maybe not quite understanding how they were asked to play. Sometimes we wanted to stop them playing and we didn't know when to do it and when not to do it. But that requires understanding.

"I've chatted to the players and they're all happy with the system. They know it can work and in the second half I think that was proved. I've chatted to Andy Townsend and they were 20 minutes a day (working) on their pattern of play. We've had the players all together for just two days and tried a new system. It's very difficult to peg that down in two days."

McCarthy bridled a little when it was put to him that the team lacked leadership. I think the team has leaders. I thought Paul McGrath was great. I thought Andy Townsend was, while he was on the field. I thought Roy Keane was as well, he played by example. I thought we had plenty of leaders."

Here though, we were back on familiar ground, for indeed all of the aforementioned `leaders' tend to lead by example. If anything is lacking in the team's leadership qualities, it is a vocal mouthpiece such as McCarthy in his time as a player, though it's questionable if international teams require an old fashioned shouter.

In mitigation, McCarthy praised the man beside him at the post match press conference, Shay Given, and said "The young lad here has had a great game but he's not going to be shouting from the back like Packie was. Packie has played, I dunno, 70 or 80 times. You think that and I disagree with you."

A bit surprisingly, perhaps, McCarthy was also quite defensive about Keane in the light of the abrasive midfielder's sending off.

"I spoke to Roy afterwards and I thought he had an excellent game. All the positive things he did and the good things he did were excellent. But obviously he gets sent off so he gets the head lines for the wrong reasons when he's played well.

"He's a top class player and I gave him the captain's arm band in the second half and said to him that I wanted him to be responsible. As I said to somebody else I was 24 once I did daft things as well. I'm not going to condemn him but I hope it doesn't happen again. _

McCarthy added that "for all, his good qualities", it would not preclude the United mid fielder from wearing the captain's arm band, again.

It subsequently transpired that Keane was taken away by private car straight to Dublin airport, though it had always been Alex Ferguson's intention to fly Keane (and Denis Irwin had he been in Dublin) back to Manchester by private jet last night.

More understandably, McCarthy staunchly defended his onetime Millwall protege Mark Kennedy. "He grew into it, he was excellent. I said to him at half time to spend a bit more. time on the ball, not just to be laying things off and have a bit more responsibility and take people on and he did so in the second half. He's playing reserve team football which is mickey mouse compared to this." Indeed, the Russians are not quite in the Pontins League class.

The Russians are what McCarthy aspires the Republic to be. "We can certainly learn from them. They're one of the best teams in the world and they'll be one of the best in the European championships. Very pacey, good technically, and they've been playing that way as a footballing nation for many years.

Undeterred, McCarthy concluded "I've learnt that we can play that system. I've learnt that we can compete passing the ball around when we started to believe in it. First half we were clattering it forward, straight balls to the front men and it was no good to us. Second half, when we believed in it, we looked capable of competing against those players."

. Roy Keane's punishment will depend on the referee's report and FIFA's reaction. They could pass the matter back to the Football Association of Ireland to decide what punishment to hand out to the player.

Russia coach Oleg Romansev said "I saw the incident near the end and I believe the referee had no doubt about the decision he made to send the player off.

"Our player is not badly hurt but I must agree with the referee's decision. There was not much else he could do."