Duff miffed at lack of the killer instinct

Players' quotes: Even on a good day Damien Duff isn't one to breezily skip into the post-match talking area, backslapping, whistling and winking. It's just not his style. He leaves the animation for the pitch; off it he seems to just take it steady.

But on Saturday, hands in pockets, the shoulders were slumped even lower, his thoughts on the game punctuated with heavy sighs and disbelieving shakes of the head.

His mood was shared by those team-mates who also stopped to talk, but while they, largely, laid the blame for the night's woes on the referee and bad luck, Duff was politely suggesting it's time the team took a good look at itself and its inability to hold what it often has - a lead.

"Two silly goals, but that's the story of our campaign so far," he sighed. "You shouldn't be throwing it away from two-nil up. The past couple of years, even when we've had one- or two-goal leads, we've never been comfortable, so I think it's about time now that we started learning from these type of things.

"Maybe we're too nice at times, maybe we need to be more nasty. We let them back into the game. Then they just killed it totally dead in the second half. It didn't flow, so maybe we need to be more like that. For a few years, I don't know, we just don't know how to kill off games. If you look at them in the second half, slowing things down, diving and what have you, maybe we need to be more like Israel. Hopefully we'll learn from it."

As one observer put it, "Is he rooming with Roy these days?"

Mind you, Duff wasn't exactly absolving the Greek official of all blame for Ireland's two lost points. "You don't need me to tell you that the ref made some awful decisions. He gave them a dodgy penalty when we had three dead certs," he said.

The Israeli goalkeeper?

"He was . . . (sigh) . . . well . . . he got them the points single-handedly, so fair play to him that way, but the way he went on at times left a lot to be desired. But he got them a point, so."

So, he did his job, and Duff evidently wished Ireland had done theirs in a similarly "professional" manner.

"Just frustrating," he said, summing up the evening, "it just wasn't meant to be. It sort of feels like a loss again, just like in Israel. Devastated again. We were desperate for six points coming into these games but now, well, we have to get the three on Wednesday. Nothing else will do."

"We were so comfortable at two-nil, but then, I don't know, a little bit lethargic, lapses in concentration, probably overplayed it in the wrong areas of the pitch," was captain Kenny Cunningham's appraisal of the night's events.

"They got a little bit more adventurous, pushed one or two people higher up the pitch, didn't allow us to play like we did in the first 20 minutes. We gave away one or two sloppy passes in the wrong areas of the pitch and invited a bit of pressure on ourselves, which we didn't need to do, and that culminated in the two goals they got," he said, making a stab at summarising the game in just the one sentence.

And then, hard as it might have been under the circumstances, Cunningham attempted to depart on an optimistic note.

"We have to pull ourselves together, there's a lot to play for, our future's still very much in our hands with the French and the Swiss to come here," he said.

"It's such a tight group I don't think a huge amount has changed after this result, if we can go and win Wednesday that will make our summer holidays feel an awful lot better. Disappointed, yes, but there's still optimism and a belief that we can qualify from this group."

Robbie Keane, meanwhile, emerged with his arm strapped up, evidently in some pain.

"I tried to play on but I was struggling, and it just got worse, it was too sore in the end. It's badly bruised but we'll see how it goes. I don't know yet how I'll be for Wednesday, we'll see what the doctor says."

Was it a penalty?

"Ah well, I think you saw it yourself - it was a clear-cut penalty," he said.

What of the referee?

"Well, when you ask me that question you must think he was poor. The lads think he was poor too. Some of his decisions in the second half? Poor, to be honest."

And poor was the only word for the night that was in it.