There was disappointment but a sense of defiance too amongst the Irish players as they made their out of the Stade de France. Many insisted that they should have beaten Sweden in their opening European Championships outing and all took heart from the quality of the first-half performance as they start their preparations now for the potentially tougher games to come.

Whether Jon Walters plays any part in the next, against Belgium in Bordeaux on Saturday, was thrown into early doubt with Martin O'Neill raising concerns about the player's recurring Achilles problem in his press conference and the Stoke City striker confirming that the injury had been a factor from almost the off here; something that suggests the decision to play him was a gamble that didn't quite come off.

“I got through the first half,” he said, “but after a couple of runs in the second it just tightened up. I was sore, nowhere near as sore as what it was even a week ago, but after the first minute it was sore. I didn’t feel like I could sprint or jump but I was trying to get through it and hope it would settle down, but it didn’t really.

“I made a few runs in behind and if I’d been a 100 per cent I would have got on the end of a couple. I was trying to do my part in the second half but the right thing was to come out. It is just a bit tight now and we’ll see how it settles down in the next couple of days.”

Like many of his team-mates, Robbie Brady seemed somewhat at a loss as to how Ireland had quite so comprehensively surrendered the initiative after scoring, but he was pleased at least with the way the night had started with the team, he says, executing the manager's gameplan to the northerner's satisfaction.

“We did what we set out to do early on,” said the left back whose sweeping forward runs had been one of the brightest aspects of the Irish display before the break. “We pushed them back and we created chances. We were very unlucky not to be a couple of goals up; it was a good positive performance although obviously we’re disappointed to have conceded the goal.

“The manager was delighted (at half-time). We did what he asked and he couldn’t ask for any more, he said, so it was all positive going into the second half.

“Maybe we could have killed them off; it was disappointing not to have ended the first half a couple of goals up but they made a couple of substitutions and put another couple of men up front which made it more difficult for us to push forward.

“With a 1-0 lead it’s hard to go gung-ho in case you concede. And they had a good bit of play down the left-hand side but I’m still a little bit disappointed; I thought we deserved the win. But there are positives to take from today and hopefully we can push on.”

That will almost certainly require Ireland to beat either Belgium or Italy, which looks a tall order, but the Dubliner is confident that he and his team-mates can produce the improvement, the sustained 90-minute performance required, to beat one of the group’s big guns and force their way into the tournament’s last 16.

“Yeah; 100 per cent,” he says. “The way we played today in the first half; pushing forward . . . if we finish a couple more of them off in the next two games we’ll be okay. I’ve a really good feeling about getting out of the group.”

He was, he said, delighted for his club-mate Wes Hoolahan, the 34-year-old man-of the match whose goal had briefly threatened to allow the Irish fans to start dreaming on day one of the knockout stages.

Hoolahan himself looked understandably proud to have made a major impact on such a great stage after so many years treading the boards on the fringe.

“Nobody will be able to take the goal away from him,” observed Brady, and it’s true, but how much better it would have been to have scored a winner.”

The midfielder, in any case, had no complaints and said that he was delighted by the quality of the first-half showing.

“I think the Swedes were stunned by our performance,” he said; “the way we played and passed the ball; the chances we created.

“The gaffer said at half-time to keep that up, we had them rattled but I think Sweden pressed us a lot more in the second half; they seemed to get men on the ball and create chances. I think when they scored we started attacking again and we had a few chances at that stage. It was just one of those games.”