Keeping feet on the ground

He was happy, of course, but Brian Kerr knows that everything is still up for grabs in their group of European Youth Championships in Sweden despite last night's defeat of Spain and Italy's two goal win over Georgia.

"For a start," he said afterwards "I don't think it's going to be a repeat of last year when you had Cyprus and Lithuania losing all of their matches. Everyone here looks like they have a good side and Spain are well capable of coming back from this and winning their other two games."

All the more reason then for satisfaction with this victory and Kerr's pleasure was clearly enhanced by the rivalry that he has enjoyed with Spanish boss Inaki Saez Ruiz since taking over as Ireland manager at this level a couple of years ago. "We've met in big tournaments and they've been tight games. Now we've won three and they've won two which is very satisfying, but it's still only one game so we've got to keep our feet on the ground.

"More important right now is the fact that we've had a good start and the lads have done very well. The centre backs were tremendous, and I thought everybody did very well after the break when, to be honest, I thought we were looking very tired."

It was then that Kerr decided to bring on Peter Murphy for John Frost but the manager denied that the switch had anything to do with any perceived difficulties on the part of the Waterford United defender. "No, the fact was that John had had the card and with the pressure that the winger was putting him under there was a slight worry because I couldn't afford a sending-off. In fact, I didn't think he was having any problems up until then really."

Kerr's assessment of the Spanish attack - basically that they'd been allowed few real chances for all their possession - was broadly endorsed by Saez Ruiz who expressed disappointment with his strikers during that closing half an hour in which they were chasing the game.

"After scoring Ireland were very difficult to get at," he remarked, adding: "Spain had a lot of the ball but we didn't get into the box with it in the way that we would have liked and that was our greatest difficulty."

Keeping them out, conceded Richie Partridge had been "backs against the wall stuff" for spells "and if there hadn't been 11 of us out there working our socks off then I don't think there's any way that we would have got this result.

"We had to battle hard but we did, and we held on towards the end and it's a great result for us."

Similarly, the goalscorer, Ger Crossley, saw the result as potentially the key to much greater things. "I said before we came out here that if we won our first game that anything was possible.

"Well it was hard going but we've done that and now we've got to keep our heads and make the most of the good start."