Switzerland - 2 Republic of Ireland - 0 For Brian Kerr this was a defeat that marked a dismal end to a frustrating beginning, the curtain coming down on the first phase of a career in international management that has thus far produced some hard lessons but little enough to cheer about.

The players, meanwhile, wrapped up their qualification campaign on Saturday at the St Jakob Park stadium in just the way they had started it a year ago, with an inglorious defeat away to one of the teams marked out as their main qualification rivals.

The margin in Basel was even the same as in Moscow but the performance, one bewilderingly lacking in any detectable signs of passion, was actually worse. The Irish were contained so easily on this occasion that neither Switzerland's superiority nor their lead was ever once under threat from the moment Hakan Yakin gave them the lead just six minutes into the game.

The speed with which the home side made that breakthrough and much that followed must have surprised and thrilled the great majority of the 31,006-strong crowd.

But for the 4,000 or so who made it into the ground after making the journey from Ireland there was to be only despair, suffered mainly in uncharacteristic silence, with their team being outplayed and overrun for close to every one of the 90 minutes.

Yakin's goal was a blow from which the visitors never looked like recovering and for John O'Shea it marked the low point of a bad day. The young Manchester United defender's place at the heart of this team's future remains unaltered after the weekend but in the years ahead the 22-year-old will not want to be reminded of his contribution to the last outing of his first campaign.

Playing in what has, over the last couple of years, become for him the relatively unfamiliar role of centre half, the Waterford man performed poorly, looking ponderous in possession and incapable of asserting himself to any effect when trying to win it.

His inexperience too was highlighted in the build-up to the opening goal with his failure to immediately clear the Raphael Wicky ball to the edge of the area allowing Alexander Frei to steal possession.

The striker then pushed the ball through O'Shea's legs and after Matt Holland had failed to intercept the low, angled drive, Yakin had only to sidestep Shay Given before tapping home from a couple of yards.

O'Shea was also partly to blame for the second, which came on the hour, when he and Gary Breen allowed Stephane Chapuisat and Frei the run of the six-yard box, from where the former forced Given into a save with a glancing touch to Raphael Wicky's cross and Frei then tapped home after the goalkeeper allowed the ball to run loose.

O'Shea, however, was only one of many who failed to perform when the occasion required it. In midfield, where Holland was initially sent out to mark Yakin, nobody proved capable of seriously hindering the advance of the Swiss, while Ireland's entire defence looked static and vulnerable, and its attack remote and generally peripheral to the proceedings.

Creatively, Kerr's men produced almost nothing of consequence. Damien Duff had his moments but was, for the most part, handled well by Wicky, who severely limited the Chelsea winger's influence. Kevin Kilbane, like Colin Healy and Ian Harte, worked hard but rarely ended one of his runs with a pass to a team-mate, a failing that contributed to the fact that, up front, Robbie Keane was virtually an onlooker.

Alongside Keane, David Connolly made an effort to generate something out of terribly little but his overall performance only added weight to the argument that the step-up from the English first division to international football is simply beyond him.

Briefly, either side of half-time, the team showed some faint signs of improvement but Connolly's one attempt on goal, a header that flew a couple of yards wide of the angle, was about as good as it got even then for the Irish and with that second goal the Swiss all but guaranteed themselves the victory.

In the half-hour that remained the scale of Ireland's problems were highlighted as Kerr tried but failed to liven up the attack.

Having left Steven Reid, Stephen McPhail and Graham Kavanagh in the stand, though, he had few attacking options to play with and after bringing on Clinton Morrison for Connolly he then threw Mark Kinsella and Steve Finnan into a game in which the Irish needed to score three times. Not only did they fail to achieve that objective but when the final whistle sounded the Irish had still not managed a solitary goal attempt on target.

As the minutes slipped past, a hint of niggle crept into the game but there was little perceptible difference to Ireland's approach, with Kerr's men continuing to toil to little effect against a Swiss team that was almost coasting towards the finals.

There, with Hakan Yakin fully fit and the personal differences that have afflicted the camp during the past month put aside, they will aim for the knockout stages but probably do little more than make up the numbers.

In Wicky and Johann Vogel, however, they at least have the basis of a midfield that can impose itself on a game, something no Irish combination has managed in any of the Republic's outings during this campaign.

Afterwards there was talk of Kerr's opportunity to reshape and rebuild the Irish team over the year that is likely to pass before he leads it into competitive action again but the scale of the failings exposed over the weekend suggest this is not a side that is going to be sorted by the addition of a couple of promising new recruits from the underage ranks. Roy Keane, of course, would have made a difference, providing leadership and drive in the centre of the field, where it was sadly missing on Saturday.

In his absence, though, the road to Germany in 2006 appears to run up a steep incline for the Irish. Kerr may need longer to turn the team around, a fact that is probably appreciated by his employers, although if he fails in the meantime to generate a considerable improvement on the team's most recent form, it just might mark the beginning of his end.

SWITZERLAND: Stiel; Haas, M Yakin, Muller, Spycher; Huggel, Vogel, Wicky; H Yakin; Frei, Chapuisat. Subs: Celstini for H Yakin (55 mins), Streller for Chapuisat (68 mins), Henchoz for Frei (91 mins).

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Given (Newcastle United); Carr (Tottenham Hotspur), Breen (Sunderland), O'Shea (Manchester United), Harte (Leeds United); Duff (Chelsea), Holland (Charlton Athletic), Healy (Sunderland), Kilbane (Everton); Keane (Tottenham Hotspur), Connolly (West Ham). Subs: Morrison (Birmingham City) for Connolly (58 mins), Finnan (Liverpool) for Kilbane and Kinsella (Aston Villa) for Holland (74 mins).

Referee: A Frisk (Denmark).Group 10 Final position<

P W D L F A Pts

Switzerland 8 4 3 1 15 11 15

Russia 8 4 2 2 19 12 14

Rep of Ireland 8 3 2 3 10 11 11

Albania 8 2 2 4 11 15 8

Georgia 8 2 1 5 8 14 7