IRELAND MANAGER MARTIN O’Neill remained optimistic despite his side suffering another big setback on their Euro 2016 qualification journey today.
The coach lamented his team’s concession of Shaun Maloney’s early second-half goal.
“We dominated the first half, but we conceded a desperately poor goal,” he told RTÉ. “And we finished pretty strongly.
“We were so dominant and I thought a second goal could have come our way.”
O’Neill also refused to get too despondent following this evening’s disappointing result, insisting “we’re still in contention”.
“Scotland have some difficult games coming up,” he added.
O’Neill praised the contribution of surprise starter, Daryl Murphy, and also criticised the Scots’ behavior towards the end of the game.
“They were taking a lot of time over things and the ref wasn’t helpful in that respect.”
The Ireland manager also defended his decision to take off one of Ireland’s main creative outlets, Wes Hoolahan, arguing:
“Wes did very well, but everyone was getting tired and [Robbie] Keane is our best goalscorer.”
