Brian Kerr in defeat. We have scant experience of dealing with him in these situations and we look into his face for clues. He seems washed out. Knocked off his feet by what he has seen.

The result is one thing. The performance is another. Which was he more disappointed in?

"More disappointed with the result," he says slowly. "I would have put up with any sort of performance to win the game."

He doesn't say it - criticising his players is not something he does - but it's there grouting the cracks. He would have put up with any sort of performance for the win. Even this.

"The early goal made it a huge task," he continues. "We had no rhythm in the first 20 minutes. In the last 20 minutes of the first half we came into it well, made some chances but didn't take them. We didn't have a good second half either."

There are things you wonder but can't ask because you know there will be no answers. Did he want to rage against his players when they sloped in at the end? They had disrespected him and Noel O'Reilly and Chris Hughton with their tepid play but harsh words make modern players ball up like hedgehogs. We talk about the future.

"We'll accelerate the process of blending some more players," he says. "I wouldn't say we lacked spirit tonight. Some days you play teams who are better than you and they beat you. They were better than us."

And the goals looked sloppy?

"Yes. They looked sloppy from where I was as well."

Both of them?

"Yeah. The Swiss might regard them as good goals. I thought they were poor defensively."

He prefers visits to the dentist to press conferences but he's struggling with this one. "We gave it a good go," he says unconvincingly. "We'd gone to the last match in with a chance. We conceded too many goals in the early games though. Left ourselves with too much to do."

That's the conundrum though. We had gained a reprieve. We had no more to do in the end than the Swiss or the Russians. We just didn't have the heart to do it.

Anything positive? "I know the players a lot better now than I did when I started. I've used 25 of them. I learned from today but it wasn't a good day.

"We've been trying to blend and integrate fellas after the losing of so many players. There are difficult things. We play in a league with very little tactical variation, very few teams playing anything but 4-4-2 most weeks.

"They (the Swiss) dealt with everyone better than we did, not just Damien Duff. They handled all of our efforts efficiently. I've never had a team where every player didn't give his honest effort. They were better then us. They deserve to go through."

We ask him if he's angry and he says he isn't. Angry mightn't be the word.

"It's frustrating. We didn't play. Overall we've had eight games and lost three of them. It's too many to lose.

"The teams ahead of us, we've one point from 12. Not good enough. It hurts as much as any defeat I've had. I've had lots of defeat that hurt me - every defeat upsets me. I'll work harder."

The talk turns to the future. The complexion of this team. Where will the leaders come from? Where are the players who will drag us back to being a version of ourselves?

"I don't know yet. We need some to emerge. These ones were overawed - maybe that's not the right word. The old leaders in the team were obvious. They were there for a while and had a long time before they assumed those roles. Others will have to learn, they have the potential but they haven't had the time yet.

"The majority of these need to play more often, need to have the blend right for home and away, need to be not so rigid in formations. We need to be able to tackle something like the diamond system without any great fuss. How to impose our own game onto it."

Kerr has younger players coming through and in some positions he has better players coming through but what he needs is characters and leaders. More kids are a dubious blessing.

"It's a combination of things on and off the pitch. There are practices, ways and means of giving people responsibility and assuring that their confidence is high and they learn from their mistakes. They'll learn they can be more mature about games in the future."

He talks about the Russians, how they can just pull a new centre forward out of their pool of players and expect him to work out.

If they have 12 million in Moscow they're more likely to find a big centre forward who's brave and accurate and fast and doesn't play rugby or Gaelic.

It's a point but he's just musing to himself.

"That's no excuse" he adds. "There are no excuses."