Ireland have to learn ‘from what the smaller teams in the World Cup have done’, says legend
Heimir Hallgrímsson’s men would have “done better” than play-off foes Czechia, who failed to progress from the group stages.
Richard Dunne admits the World Cup has been a tough watch as an Ireland fan - but he believes Heimir Hallgrímsson’s side can learn from some of the great underdog stories at this summer’s tournament.
The 80-time capped former defender reckons the Boys in Green would have out-performed Czechia, Ireland’s play-off conquerors in March.
“It has been (hard to watch),” Dunne said, speaking to MirrorSport via Casino Groups. “I think the hardest part was watching the Czechs not doing so well and thinking we could have done better than that.
“For us watching it, there has to be a realisation that we are not at that level at the moment. We need to improve, we need to get better.
“We always think we have to play the type of football that Spain and England are playing, keeping possession and all that.
“But the teams that weren’t fancied to do well, they defended brilliantly, they got their shape well, they defended in low blocks when they needed to, and they were not embarrassed to do so.
“They went out and got the results that they needed.
“Under Heimir I think that’s the way Ireland will play going forward. I think we’ve shown it in the recent games.
“It’s difficult for us to break teams down, but when we play the bigger sides we defend really well and we counter-attack.
“I think we have to take that from what the smaller teams in the World Cup have done.
“That’s probably the way Ireland have to go to try and get ourselves back at that level and to be competing at the finals of major tournaments.”
Dunne is confident that Ireland are on an upward curve under the Icelander.
“You go back through the last five or six years and we weren’t at a level where we were competing and getting to the final games of group stages and being involved,” he said.
“Now we’ve got ourselves to a play-off through our group position, we’ve beaten some top sides, so all of a sudden we are competitive again.
“We’ll go into the Euro qualifiers thinking we can compete against anybody.
“The difficult games are probably the games we are expected to win, because then we have to do something different.
“But against the bigger sides we can compete, which we’ve shown against Hungary and Portugal.
“I think there is optimism going into the next campaigns and a belief that maybe we are on our way back. There are plenty of players coming through.
“We shouldn’t be too down on ourselves, we should be positive and we should believe that we can compete.”
