Stephen Kenny continues to see it his way as walls close in on Ireland tenure

As is often the case, Stephen Kenny’s view of his latest defeat was open to scrutiny but what can’t be debated is the icy ground he’s treading as the last of the summer rays give way to Autumnal chills.

Kenny doesn’t need glasses to adopt a rose-tinted hue. To his mind, Netherlands shaded a tight contest 2-1 on Sunday night despite the Dutch controlling the second half and seeing out their third win of Euro ’24 qualifying Group B with ease.

Not for the first time in his three-year tenure, the Ireland manager was outsmarted in the tactical battle, slow in reacting to Ronald Koeman’s interval double-substitution.

Within 10 minutes, one of the newcomers hooked home what proved to be the winner, adding to Cody Gapko’s 19th minute penalty that cancelled out Adam Idah’s opener for Ireland.

Defeat burns another tilt at glory for Kenny, his fifth campaign between the Euro ’21 playoff, World Cup qualifiers, these Euro qualifiers and two series of Nations League. Surviving to the end of the latest failed version is a mission entirely out of his control.

“We relentlessly pressed and should have capitalised on a couple of opportunities to go two up,” said Kenny, lamenting the early blitz without confessing how the Dutch finished the first half the stronger.

“I couldn’t believe we conceded the equaliser; such a frustrating goal.” 

Admitting Shane Duffy’s late siege in search of an equaliser was an act of personal choice, the manager still felt Ireland were in the game ‘til the final moments.

He said: “We kept going to the end, had a lot of crosses, they defended their box well. We had a lot of individuals running at them but I would have liked to create more than we did in that end period.”

“It wasn’t an instruction for Shane