Soccer/ Euro 2008 Qualifying: As they sat around chatting after Steve Staunton's pre-match conference in Limassol last Friday, a group of Cypriot journalists passed the time speculating on who might get their own manager's job in the event, as they expected, that Ireland inflicted another heavy defeat on Angelos Anastasiadis' team and the coach was obliged as a result to walk the plank.

Their copy the next day reflected their confidence that the Cypriot FA would be hiring again soon.

But from their demeanour when Anastasiadis arrived that evening to discus his side's remarkable 5-2 victory, it was clear they now reckoned they would be keeping the former Greece international's company for another while yet. Despite the win, few looked entirely happy about the prospect.

Four days later many Irish journalists found themselves in much the same position. Quite a few remain unconvinced regarding Staunton's ability to succeed over the long term, but few could argue in the wake of Wednesday's dramatically improved performance against the Czechs that he deserves more time to show just what he is capable of doing.

Just as the Louthman was justifiably criticised for some of his decisions and the team's shortcomings in Nicosia, so there are positive aspects of the display on Wednesday for which he must be credited.

In stark contrast to Saturday, his players were highly disciplined, kept their shape well and showed enormous commitment to the cause against Karol Bruckner's side. Every call the manager made in terms of team selection and formation looked to come off.

Among other things, Jonathan Douglas amply justified his selection, Andy Reid did well playing off Robbie Keane and Kevin Kilbane looked extremely happy to be back out on the left flank.

Paul McShane's selection may have been forced on Staunton, but the 20-year-old excelled on his debut and promised a great deal for the future.

Keane, an unlikely lone striker, had, like Damien Duff and John O'Shea, his best game for Ireland in quite some time.

Then there is Lee Carsley, whose leadership by example in midfield, where he set the tone for the entire display with a couple of aggressive early challenges, proved decisive in enabling a weakened Irish side to edge a fast-moving encounter with a team widely acknowledged to be one of the best in the world.

Handing the Everton midfielder a late call-up and then naming him in the starting line-up was obviously the right thing to do in the circumstances, but then it would have been easy for Staunton to dig in his heels in the face of a sustained campaign from an increasingly critical press.

The downside for the manager is that Carsley's performance against the Czechs did serve to highlight the enormous difference he might have made at the GSP stadium over the weekend.

His omission from the trip was a major blunder by Staunton, whose decision to afford his defence almost no protection from midfield proved catastrophic during the second half.

The manager might also have had Stephen Kelly and Andy Reid there, both of whom had been fit enough to play for their clubs in the build-up to the international break, and it would have been ironic if Staunton's repeated willingness to facilitate English club managers, as he seemed to be doing in Reid's case, had contributed to him being out of a job before there was the opportunity for the favours to be returned.

Another mistake appears to have been the decision to play Andy O'Brien in Nicosia where, even before picking up an actual injury, he looked far from fully fit. Having started him, however, the 27-year-old should have been replaced long before the 72nd minute, by which time the Cypriots were getting well on top.

In short, we can only guess what the Irish would have won by on Saturday if they had turned in the sort of performance they managed on Wednesday.

Instead, the surprise defeat was another tough lesson for a managerial novice who listed the production of entertaining football as a major priority before his first game in charge, the 3-0 win over Sweden. Four defeats later the talk was of showing the Czechs the "aggressive side of Irish nature".

It's far from the ideal, but the resulting improvement was dramatic. While Saturday's performance was the worst in recent years, Wednesday's was the best, eclipsing the match in Paris where a far stronger Irish side held a troubled French team to a goalless draw and rivalling the strongest displays from the 2002 World Cup campaign. Lifting his team to those sorts of heights on a regular basis, though, will take a bit of doing.

He should, at least, benefit from the fact that back-to-back games against San Marino will provide the opportunity to get points on the board. He could do with a few because, with just one point from three games, Ireland are currently amongst the 11 worst-placed countries in the entire competition, with the likes of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Albania occupying similarly low-lying territory in their respective groups.

And despite his efforts to counter the PR disaster of his refusal to guarantee the manager's future on Tuesday by being more supportive in a string of radio interviews the following day, John Delaney did enough to suggest this week that the improvement had better be maintained into March when Ireland take on Wales and Slovakia in Croke Park or Staunton will have renewed cause to fear for his future.

The hope will be that Wednesday's performance is evidence that Staunton is learning fast from his mistakes and that his players are prepared to roll their sleeves up in order to help their manager out of a hole they did much to dig for him.

Qualification already looks out of the question, but around 16 points would probably be enough to maintain Ireland's status as a fourth seed when the draw is made for the next World Cup qualifying campaign. That, and regular signs of steady progress being made in terms of the squad's development would, at this stage, be an achievement of sorts and enough to keep Staunton in his job.

Any more really serious setbacks would still be hard for the Louthman to overcome, however, as his Cypriot counterpart discovered yesterday morning when, after a poor display and a 3-1 defeat in Cardiff, there was renewed speculation in the media regarding both his position and possible successors.

IRELAND UNDER-21 (Squad v Luxembourg, Oct 18th): Quigley (UCD), Randolph (Charlton), Kane (Blackburn), O'Cearuill (Arsenal), Hand (Huddersfield), O'Dea (Celtic), Cregg (Falkirk), Gibson (Antwerp), Dicker (UCD), Kelly (Bohemians), Morris (Scunthorpe), Keogh (Scunthorpe), Stokes (Falkirk), O'Brien (Celtic), Long (Reading), O'Connor (Crewe), Stapleton (Unatt), Keogh (Bristol City).