REPUBLIC OF IRELAND V CYPRUS:GOD IS the one who ultimately decides the outcome of matches. So suggested the Cyprus coach Angelos Anastasiadis yesterday. Which prompts a question: just what was it we Irish did on the Almighty a couple of years ago in the build-up to that humiliating 5-2 defeat in Nicosia, asks Emmet Malone

But then the Cypriots have arrived in Dublin for this evening's game after suffering some disappointing results themselves.

Anastasiadis reckons his team should have beaten Italy and Georgia, though somewhat predictably, he blames poor defending rather than a disgruntled deity for the points dropped last month and on Saturday night.

When his team beat Steve Staunton's they were recovering from a nightmarish outing against Slovakia, and in a bizarre post-match press conference Anastasiadis announced he still could not smile because of the previous result.

At the Cypriots' base on Dublin's Southside yesterday, though, there were several moments of levity, the 55-year-old coach looking especially pleased when he heard the 5-2 game is still a talking point hereabouts.

"We know," he remarked, "that the game this time will be very different because of the weather, the injury problems we have and the fact that our opponents will be a lot fresher than us.

"More importantly, though, there is no comparison between this Irish team and the one we played last year or the year before."

Giovanni Trapattoni, he said, was a coach he admired and respected from afar "as one of the best in the world" during his own playing days: "The Irish now have a world-class coach who achieved a great deal in the game and so it's going to be very difficult for us. We will have to work very hard to overcome the elements of the new coach and this new Irish team."

The visitors' injury and suspension problems could prove at least as significant.

The Georgians took a conspicuously physical approach to Saturday's game in Tbilisi, and three Cypriot players arrived yesterday carrying significant knocks. A fourth, Michail Chrysos, headed straight for home.

One of the three doubts is Michael Constantinou, who got two of those five goals in Nicosia. Constantinos Charalambides, who got two, is definitely out, having picked up his second booking of the campaign over the weekend.

"Ireland is such a big team with so many good players it doesn't matter if one or two are missing," said Anastasiadis when asked about the relative difficulties of the two squads. "Cyprus is much smaller with fewer quality players so it is more of a problem."

Despite that, Anastasiadis seems quietly confident, insisting he has faith in the players available to him and confidence in their ability to "control this game and get the result we want".

When somebody asked if that meant a win, he disdained the implication they had travelled all this way with the intention of losing.

Either travelling with the aim of securing a draw had not occurred to him or something had been lost in translation (an interpreter being key to the exchanges).

To judge by the comments of his skipper, Ioannis Okkas, it may have been the former.

"This is a very big game for us against a very well known opponent," said the 31-year-old striker. "We know who our opponents are. The team consists of world-class players. We respect them."

There were appreciative nods from the Irish press corps.

Then Okkas added, "But at the same time we need to start piling up the points."

While Anastasiadis plays down the importance of the two most recent games between these teams and most locals prefer to hark back to happier times when Ireland could count on beating a team then considered to be minnows, however laboured the victory, Okkas insists every game these days is a blank canvas.

"It's clear to everyone that we've improved over the last couple of years," he said in reference to a period when there have been home wins over Hungary and Wales and a draw with Germany. "But we need to keep building on those successes. We can't take the improvement for granted. Each game starts from scratch and we have to look at them one at a time."

Key to the success of Anastasiadis since he took the job in 2006 is a refusal to be overawed by any opposition.

"If we look at opponents individually," observes the manager, in reference to the higher-ranked countries, "they are all better than us and so we must worry about ourselves and not our opponents."

In part because of that outlook, he reflects on the last two games with obvious regret.

"We should have had six points according to the way we played, but it could have been zero too.

"But we put our faith in God and it is He who decides what you get."

If the Cypriot coach is correct, perhaps we had better hope the supreme being reckons he owes us one.