Paul McShane hopes his club form will be enough to earn him a place in Martin O'Neill's 23-man squad for the Euros after a forgettable international return in the 2-2 draw with Slovakia on Tuesday evening.
It wasn't the most auspicious of returns to international football for the 33-times-capped defender, who the manager will have deemed at least partially culpable for both of Slovakia's first half goals.
A missed header near halfway led to Marek Stoch's opening goal – the attempted prevention of which has ruled goalkeeper Rob Elliot out of Euro 2016 with a knee injury – while he deflected the ball into his own goal on the stroke of half-time.
Nevertheless, McShane drew the positives from a game that Ireland largely controlled and, on another day, could easily have won with a goal or two to spare.
For McShane, it offered the first chance – bar a behind-closed-doors match with Northern Ireland last summer – to make an impression on manager Martin O'Neill.
“I'm sort of disappointed in the overall game, but it was good to be back on the pitch after so long," said McShane after the match.
“It was good to start a game, and I've just got to crack on now, get back to club level and concentrate on that and keep going.
“It was great to be back on the pitch – it was my first start in about three years I think – and I was just trying to get on the ball as much as I can, play as much as I can, and try and enjoy it. I enjoyed that part of it.”
The centre-half position has emerged as a particularly competitive area for the management team, who saw Richard Keogh and Ciaran Clark emerge as genuine options at the tail-end of the campaign.
Shane Duffy was impressive in the shut-out of Switzerland on Good Friday, while Marc Wilson hasn't given up hope of recovering from injury by the time the squad is announced in May. So McShane will hope his club form is enough to tip him over the edge.
“It's going to be difficult and it's going to be very competitive. There are a lot of lads going for my position so it's definitely going to be difficult, but I'll just keep going.”
Following on from the win over Switzerland on Friday, Slovakia represented another chance for O'Neill to test the squad against quality international opposition.
Like the Swiss, Slovakia won automatic qualification for the European Championships from a group that contained reigning champions Spain, whom the Slovaks surprisingly beat 2-1 in Zilina at the beginning of the campaign.
“They're a good side, Slovakia, a good international side. They're clever – you can tell they have some clever players.
“They did catch us on the counter-attack a few times and maybe we could have dealt with it a bit better. The two goals were definitely avoidable.”
In contrast to the game against the Swiss, Slovakia were content to sit back and allow Ireland to commit numbers to attack, trusting their ability to make the best of their opportunities on the counter.
While the sight of an Irish team dominating possession against similar-standard opposition might be a collector's item in recent years, Martin O'Neill will be concerned by how open his side were as a result.
McShane found himself in no man's land, over-committed and beaten to the ball near the halfway line for Stoch's opener while a swift injection of pace in attack led to the Reading captain's own goal.
“That's international football. There's massive concentration needed because teams can think you're comfortable one minute and then they're hitting you on the break the next.
“There's big concentration levels needed. The three teams we've got (in the Euro group stage) are top quality and a lot of concentration will be needed against them.”
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