Emmet Malone looks at the reason behind the defeat to Spain and explains why there will be few additions to the squad in the near future

Twenty minutes after Sunday's game with Spain had ended in defeat for his team, Mick McCarthy looked like a man standing in the street shouting "thief" when plainly there's nobody about for miles. He told a familiar story of a well-earned victory somehow spirited away by the cruelness of fate but then, as Giovanni Trapattoni showed the world a couple of days later, coaches have a knack for suspecting larceny when all that's really happened is that they've made a package of their wallet and mailed it to a stranger.

The reality is that for all the spirit shown against Spain in Suwon last weekend the team failed to win primarily because they were not good enough to finish off a group of players that were manifestly on their last legs. Once again, the Irish have proven themselves to be charmers thanks to their blend of honesty, perseverance and not a little skill. The idea that the same cocktail of qualities will ever make them champions is still a little fanciful.

The morning after the match, one Spanish daily suggested that a better side would have "murdered" Jose's Camacho's men during extra-time and they were right. By then, Albelda had left the contest and Luis Enrique, though still actually present, was limping so badly that Camacho subsequently observed that his team had played through those two periods of extra time with nine and a half men. It still ended up being too many for their opponents.

The relative success of the Irish team for a decade and a half now has been based on its ability as a collective to make up for the fact that a Mark Kinsella will never be the equal of a Juan Carlos Valeron in central midfield, nor a Kevin Kilbane quite the handful that a Gaizka Mendieta can be.

On Sunday, though, the team may just have needed one more player who really possessed the credentials to do battle with the stars of Real Madrid, Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna. The only one who might have made a difference, though, had, as McCarthy put it the next day, chosen to be at home. Surely nobody can have been hurting over that decision more than Roy Keane himself.

In his absence Kinsella and Matt Holland were wonderful and looked well capable of providing the drive required to get the team through the forthcoming qualification campaign for the European Championships if, as looks increasingly likely, Keane is to stay away. Certainly nobody could deny that they have earned the right to try.

The rest of the team is likely to remain largely unaltered. The fact that so many of the players who featured prominently in Ireland's four games remain on the right side of their prime provides McCarthy with the option of largely leaving well enough alone.

Steve Carr's return will broaden the manager's options in the full back positions as, in both central defence and attack, will Gary Doherty, but after that it will not be easy for the players who watched this World Cup while on their summer vacation.

With Alan Kelly's retirement, Nicky Colgan should become a regular in the squad when the new season begins and Ireland travel in August to Helsinki for a friendly before getting down to serious business a month later in Moscow.

Doherty will be in contention at both ends of the pitch, and for all McCarthy's talk about seeing the 22 year-old primarily as a defensive option, the manager is well served in that department with the likes of Andy O'Brien, Richard Dunne and perhaps even Phil Babb in the queue behind Gary Breen and Kenny Cunningham.

The fact that Niall Quinn met with so much success in his attempts to unsettle good defences, on the other hand, suggests there is still a need to have someone with that sort of physical presence within the squad.

Richard Sadlier is another one who may provide it, but he has been unfortunate with injuries and has not yet played club football at the same level as the Spurs player.

Though McCarthy kept faith with Robbie Keane and Damien Duff as an attacking partnership in these finals, the immeasurably greater influence exerted by the latter when he moved out to the flanks confirmed that this is where he should be playing. The question now is whether the man best placed to provide an alternative up front, Clinton Morrison, can grow quickly enough into the role that is required of him.

Mark Kennedy should get the chance to play his way back into the scheme of things and nobody is likely to view his efforts more favourably than McCarthy.

Rory Delap will also come back into the reckoning after a couple of years in which he has been unfortunate, largely because of injuries, to become such a peripheral figure.

Of potentially more significance will be the rates at which Colin Healy and Thomas Butler can establish themselves at club level.

Both look to have tremendous talent and the prospect of Butler playing on the right wing for Ireland while Duff works his way up and down the left is an exciting one even at this early stage.

The pair are, of course, still very young and in common with John O'Shea and a couple of other contenders like Alan Quinn and Jason Gavin, they may have work to do before getting their chances from a man who is now in charge of a squad populated almost exclusively by players he himself brought into the team for the first time. They all look about as well placed as Stephen McPhail, though, whose style of play, just as it failed to impress David O'Leary, continues to leave McCarthy cool.

McCarthy, of course, has been obliged often enough during his six years in charge to throw youngsters in and hope they swim. Over the past few weeks most have repaid his faith with interest and as the team starts their preparation for the European Championship campaign it seems likely that another couple at least will get the opportunity to dip their toes in the water.