While FAI chief executive Fran Rooney said the association could expect to lose out financially between €2 million and €3 million as a result of the national team's failure to qualify for next summer's European Championship in Portugal, the most immediate cost to players on Saturday evening could best be measured in terms of pride.

David Connolly admitted it had been a bad day for the Irish. Or, more precisely, he admitted it had been a "bad, bad, bad day", which is only a few "bads" short of being spot on.

"We didn't play well," he continued, "and I didn't play well. We started badly and the trend continued. They're a good side and they played well but that's no excuse, we should have been better than that."

Connolly wasn't the only one of Brian Kerr's team to observe that the Irish had let both themselves and their supporters down. Damien Duff was another but the Chelsea midfielder broadened the scope of the admission.

"I don't think any of us know why it went so badly today but the fact is that we weren't nearly good enough out there or over the course of the eight games."

The four games against Switzerland and Russia, however, were the ones that came up in conversation time and again.

"We didn't do ourselves justice," sighed Gary Breen. "We didn't play well and, to be honest, when you take one point from four games against your main rivals you really don't deserve to qualify.

"They played well against us in Dublin and they've played well against us this evening," he continued. "We've probably got to give them a bit more credit than we would have when the draw was made. Obviously, we would feel that we're better than tonight's performance would suggest but having said that, if you lose both home and away to any team you can't have any complaints about not qualifying."

It was left to Matt Holland, the team captain on the day, to try to inject a little optimism into the proceedings, the 29-year-old claiming Brian Kerr might benefit from the year-long lay-off from competitive games.

"I'm sure Brian will be looking now to have a look at some young players," he said, "maybe Liam Miller and some of the other ones that have come through the under-21s.

"In international terms, though, we're still a young squad - a lot younger than, say, the likes of France. The likes of Damien Duff, Robbie Keane and John O'Shea are good young players who already have a lot of experience and that will stand to us now going forward. So hopefully the future's still bright."

A few minutes later Stephane Henchoz, with more apparent reason, was talking up the future of the Swiss team, although he conceded they might come up against slightly tougher opponents at next summer's finals.

"I was surprised by the Irish tonight," said the Liverpool defender. "I kept waiting for them to start becoming more aggressive but it never happened. Even at the end we had the ball in their half for half an hour and it seemed that they were incapable of doing anything about it.

"And whenever they had the ball they gave it away very quickly although," he added a little more controversially, "I would say that that was partly because we played very well."