He has just turned 21 and is one of the most inexperienced members of the Ireland set-up with just two senior caps on his CV. But midfielder Andy Moran speaks sense like a seasoned campaigner when he says that this Ireland squad cannot afford the luxury of just packing away Sunday’s humiliation at Wembley as a night to forget. No matter the year, the manager, the competition or the player, post-match interviews with Ireland players in the wake of a defeat, especially a heavy one, follow the same path.
There are learnings, moving on, keeping the head down and working hard in training ...
often followed by another loss the next time out. So it was heartening to hear from Moran in the bowels of Wembley Stadium after the defeat fronting up for interviews on a night when older and more experienced players shied away from the mics and the questions. "I don't think we can just write it off.
We need to be disappointed about it,” the Stoke City man said of the 5-0 loss. “We don't want to come here and just accept that we're going to lose. No, we don't just write it off.
We look back at it and see what went wrong for the next time. We're going to play teams of this quality at World Cups and Euros if we want to get there, so we need to learn to take points off teams like this. “We’ve to work to do, obviously we’re not the finished article yet, we’ve got a group of lads who will give everything so we’ll keep trying to get where we want to be.
“It’s a tough result but .