A positive thread

[geysir]

We'd probably have lost on penalties.

A losers survivalist psychology, even with the smiley.

At the time I fancied our chances in a possible penalty shoot out.
Even going to penalties would have been a very fortunate result for France.
In ET I was looking forward to see us banging in the penalties one after the other.

[passinginterest]

A losers survivalist psychology, even with the smiley.

At the time I fancied our chances in a possible penalty shoot out.
Even going to penalties would have been a very fortunate result for France.
In ET I was looking forward to see us banging in the penalties one after the other.

I've also been consoling myself with the we'd never have won on penalties theory. Llloris was in fabulous form and Given has a poor record at saving penos.

As this is the positive thread I think a generation of players have just learned that no matter what the media say, or the club you play for would suggest, they can compete with and beat the best teams in the world. It's something that they should really carry into the Euro qualifiers.

I think Glenn Whelan deserved special mention, he was immense and I thought we lost it when he went off injured. He carried Andrews through the first half hour and never gave a single ball away, Andrews improved as the game went on but never used the ball as well as Whelan. Overall though all the players surpassed themselves for most of the two legs.

[SilkCut]

Liking this thread, we could have won, we should have won but we didn't. What we did do was show the so called stronger teams that we can live with anyone even without some of our better players (Finnan, S. Reid, A. Reid). Should we play like that in the Euro qualifiers (Especially with some of the players coming through) we will walk any group we are in. The players must remember how they feel this morning and promise themselves that that won't happen to them again. I hope we get to play France again in the near future and absolutely hammer them. In the meantime lets leave it to our rugby boys to teach them a lesson in the 6 nations. Its a sad sad day but a bright bright future.

[cestlavie]

Gutted but very proud of the boys. The first touch by Henry, you could
almost understand as it is an instinctive thing to do but the second
was pure criminal. Here's to the future, The boys in green are back.
All we need to do now is build a stronger panel. We need to believe in
ourselves more. We should be in South Africa, and perhaps if we had of
went for it more in Montenegro+Bulgaria and wee bit more luck here and
there, we would be, Cestlavie! Bring on the Euro's

[Yard of Pace]

Trying to focus on positives throughout the day. Right now it's that I'm in love with Sledge and Glenn Whelan. So much passion and showed they have the ability to play like Gods when playing for Ireland. I feel for the oppositon who will be facing guys like that in the next campaign. To paraphrase Tom Ryan, they'll walk all over the c***s.

Anyone able to read Sledge's twitter?
http://twitter.com/dipset12

[SwanVsDalton]

Magnificent performance - possibly the best Irish performance I've ever seen. I'm as proud as I am sickened.

But we've proven what we're made of and got some monkeys off the back. Time to do it consistently. We played France off the park in Paris, and deserved to win over the two legs. But it's over - time to face a new challenge with the confidence that we deserve to be competing at major championships. We're good enough, now prove it consistently.

Well done Trap and the lads.

[Yard of Pace]

Lawro says:
"What was apparent for this magnificent Irish performance is anything can be achieved in football, against any opposition, with hard work and belief."

I was SO sick of the "we don't have the players. We're rubbish" brigade. Hopefully last night will shut them up.

[ger121]

We'd probably have lost on penalties.

Surprised nobody else has mentioned that today. With the way their keeper was playing he was bound to save a couple. I had visions of the shoot-out against Spain all over again...

[MariborKev]

Positives? Amongst the best I have seen watching us home and away.

The talk was of going there and creating a chance, we went there and created any number of chances.

Still too numb to watch the replay though.