IRELAND MAY HAVE emerged with three points ultimately, but Martin O’Neill was far from impressed with his side’s display in the 1-0 win over Georgia last night.
A poor first-half in particular saw the visitors go close to scoring on a couple of occasions, before Ireland ultimately narrowly got over the line following a significant improvement after the break.
“I thought we were very, very ordinary in the first half,” O’Neill admitted afterwards. “We couldn’t get close enough to them and particularly here playing at the Aviva, I think we have to get on the front foot.
“We started not so cleverly and couldn’t get any momentum going. They passed it well — in fact, I was pleased that we were still level at half-time — they had one (attempt) off the bar, which could have gone in.”
O’Neill consequently felt a greater sense of urgency in the Irish team’s play in the second half was key to their rejuvenation.
“We closed them down, started to get a few second balls, started to out some pressure on them and I’m obviously delighted that we have won.
“But we can play, obviously, much better.
“Naturally, I am delighted that we have won the game — the three points became the most important thing for us.”
Ireland had to work hard in all of their six previous competitive matches against Georgia — five of which were won by a single-goal margin — and last night was no exception.
“Tonight again, it was tough and I think that they might be going away thinking (they were unlucky)… They played well against Austria as well and they are possibly wondering how they have ended up with no points from two games.
“We just didn’t get close enough (in the first half); it’s as simple as that. You’d think after maybe five, 10 minutes, we’d start getting into it but no, we didn’t close.
“Obviously, if you have the ball, you have to try to use it properly, but we didn’t have enough of the ball and Georgia have come out there tonight and were thinking ‘listen, this is alright, we’re playing’, and they played very well indeed, particularly in the first-half.
“I thought in the second half our idea was to close the players down and just do some hard work, that’s what we need to do and from that I think we started to get the ball, we started to create a little bit more.
“They were controlling the game in the first half. The second half, without being brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, we did enough to turn it around and win and as I said, that shows more about the spirit than in terms of our play tonight.”
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