This time, it was a header skewing off the side of Richard Dunne’s temple that opened the door for Marek Cech’s cruel equaliser. Dunne would like it known that his eyes were open at the time, his mind was clear, there was – he is insistent - no lapse of concentration. What happened simply happened.
There was no mystery. “It wasn’t down to concentration,” he explained yesterday, his voice carrying the faintest thread of exasperation. “They (Slovakia) just put an overflow of men up front. A long ball came up and I went for a challenge with a header. The ball came off the side of my head and went across the goal. It could have gone to any one of five of our men or any one of five of theirs.
“Unfortunately, it landed on their lad’s left foot and he connected with it nicely and buried it. I don’t think it was concentration or anything bad. It was just an unfortunate moment.”
Dunne insists that talk of a recurring theme here (Ireland have now spurned leads in four Group games) have not pierced the team psyche.
“Not really. I actually didn’t realise that ‘til now,” he said when told of the statistic.
“It’s not something you keep going back to. The only thing that we can really take from it is the disappointment of conceding in the last minute.
“If we’re in the same situation again on Wednesday, I’m sure it’ll be in the back of our minds and we’ll be trying that extra bit harder not to let this one slip.”
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