An editorial note re: The 42’s reporting on the Uefa Nations League matches between Ireland and Israel is available to read here.

ON THURSDAY NIGHT, at least initially, football was finally the primary focus for Ireland watchers on this dread-filled international window.

And on the pitch, it feels like Heimir Hallgrímsson’s Ireland are haunted by one result in particular.

The 2-1 defeat by Armenia in the last World Cup qualifying campaign was a watershed moment for the manager and the team.

That dismal loss to a side 45 places below them in the Fifa rankings at the time left a mark; the Irish boss took some lessons from it.

For a tough away game, it was a very attacking line-up.

Ryan Manning and Chiedozie Ogbene were the wing-backs. Jack Taylor and Finn Azaz were played in the attacking midfield behind Evan Ferguson.

The team tried to play through the ostensibly inferior Armenians, who had just been beaten 5-0 by Portugal. Ireland were torn asunder as a result, and the defeat was more comprehensive than the scoreline suggested, with Caoimhín Kelleher producing a man-of-the-match performance.

Shay Given called it “probably one of the worst results in our history”, and at the time, it looked like Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign had ended before it really began.

Every competitive international match since then seems to have been conditioned by that nadir.

The Boys in Green have been far more cautious, particularly in away games. And it has worked to an extent – last year’s defeats of Portugal and Hungary were among the best results in the nation’s football history. Both wins were built on Ireland making themselves difficult to beat, even if the game in Budapest required some late attacking heroics.

It was hardly a big surprise, therefore, that the visitors retained the structure of the Hungary encounter against Kosovo on Thursday.

Eight of the players who started in Budapest kept their spot in Pristina.

The only changes were enforced: James Abankwah replaced Seamus Coleman, Jason Knight came in for Josh Cullen, and John Egan started instead of Nathan Collins.

The big difference was that Ireland were trailing for most of the game in Hungary. The hosts opened the scoring in the fourth minute, and re-took the lead in the 37th after Parrott’s equaliser in the 15th, and it was not until the 80th minute that the Dubliner scored again.

This evening, Kosovo opened the scoring in the 83rd minute.

Ireland defended for most of the game and only had 10 minutes (including stoppage time) to get back into it.

Whereas the Boys in Green had made four attacking changes by the 60th minute in Budapest, they made only one until the 80th on Thursday.

Heimir Hallgrímsson had said in the build-up to this game that he would be happy with a point and his side played that way.

In stark contrast to the Yerevan trip, Ireland started the match with five players whose natural position is centre-back, with Scales and Abankwah somewhat awkwardly shoehorned into the wing-back slots either side of Egan, Jake O’Brien and Dara O’Shea.

In midfield too, Jason Knight and Jayson Molumby are primarily known as grafters rather than technical or creative footballers who can dictate the game.

Ireland's manager Heimir Hallgrímsson and Troy Parrott dejected after the match. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

The team were set up to defend, leaving Ireland’s attackers reliant on scraps. And all three of Finn Azaz, Chiedozie Ogbene and Troy Parrott had an off night to make matters worse.

Ogbene’s running power and physicality proved a useful outlet at times. But the winger looked short of confidence, having made only one Championship start for Lincoln this season, failing to hit the target with Ireland’s best chance of the game midway through the first half.

Azaz could never execute the killer pass the way he so often does for Southampton. Yet in the Championship, the 26-year-old’s team are rarely under the cosh as dramatically as Ireland often are, and he has more time and better situations to accentuate his attacking prowess.

Similarly, the header that Parrott could only direct straight at the goalkeeper from Abankwah’s cross would feel less costly at Real Betis, knowing at least three or four good chances would come his way over the course of a typical La Liga match. However, that moment was the visitors’ only effort on target in the entire contest.

And there is an element of Russian roulette to Ireland setting their stall out and defending for 90% of the match.

Kosovo attempted 22 shots compared to only three for the visitors.

Unlike in Budapest, by the time Ireland fell behind, they were exhausted from chasing their opponents all game.

The response was meek. There was no late rally. By the end, Kosovo were easily exposing Ireland on the break, as Armenia did repeatedly 12 months earlier.

It is a terrible international window for Irish football, for reasons that have been well documented, and Thursday was a bad note to start it on.

Even a win against Israel on Sunday would feel bittersweet under the circumstances.

Whether the off-field controversies impacted the players’ performances is impossible to know for sure. But their ashen faces afterwards suggested, understandably, that they would rather be somewhere else right now, and Jason Knight’s post-match comments reinforced that view.

Already, the euphoria of Budapest feels a million years ago, and the Yerevan debacle has a companion piece.