JOHN O’SHEA believes Ireland’s win over Hungary is a first step towards qualifying for tournaments again.
Troy Parrott’s injury-time winner ended a run of four games without a win, with Gibraltar – twice – the only team beaten in the previous seven matches.
With FAI interim chief executive David Courell claiming last month that the managerial recruitment process was still open, the result did O’Shea no harm, even director of football Marc Canham previously claimed he was not in the running for the job on a permanent basis.
The interim boss is none the wiser about where he stands and is hoping for clarity at the end of this window.
But, whoever is in charge, O’Shea reckons ending Hungary’s 14-game unbeaten run can be a building block to having Ireland in contention to qualify again.
The last major tournament they played at was Euro 2016 with their last World Cup appearance way back in 2002.
O’Shea said: “It was big for the group because I think we needed that win to have the confidence of winning again.
“I’ve mentioned it, to qualify for tournaments again we need to have a strong home record, a strong home belief that we can see games out.
“Yeah, it’s great if we’re playing well, but if we’re not playing well, you find a way.
“I said to them was ‘find a way to win against Hungary because they’ve been unbeaten, we can be the ones to do it and we did’.”
Asked if the win moved him a step closer to becoming Stephen Kenny’s permanent successor, O’Shea said: “I’m a step nearer to the game against Portugal and we’re going into it with a win and hopefully we’ll have more answers on that.
“Look it’s straightforward for me, we’re doing all we can, we’re prepping and planning the team as best we can.”
Ireland travel to Portugal tomorrow ahead of the game in Aveiro on Tuesday but there are injury doubts over Shane Duffy and Finn Azaz.
O’Shea had planned to take Duffy off at half-time anyway but he picked up a calf problem with Azaz suffering a quad issue.
The Waterford man admitted that the Middlesbrough man had been quiet by his standards but insisted that was not solely his fault.
O’Shea said: “When we watch it back, I can picture it in my head already. The positions we were asking him to pick up, if our detail and care of our passing was better, he was in the right positions, so I can’t ask for more.
“I know his ability, his passing should have been better but the kid, from where he is developing, he has lots of great attributes and ones that we need in a team to go and win games.
“Technically he is really good and he will be better, I know that.”