Not a good day at the office.
We’re probably all sick of seeing images of Christian Eriksen striking one of his three goals last night.
Or Irish players dejected and heartbroken.
Or Martin O’Neill looking flabbergasted.
There weren’t a whole lot of positives that could be taken away from Tuesday night’s game from an Irish perspective, it was just a bad day. A horrible day.
It had been a rollercoaster of a campaign with highs such as the iconic nights in Wales and Austria and the depressing lows like the Serbia defeat, Tblissi and then, of course, Denmark at home.
There were a lot of twists and turns but Seamus Coleman’s injury was one that may have shaped the whole campaign – he is the skipper after all, the leader.
Ireland has never really been too short of leaders. Even on Tuesday night, James McClean and Shane Duffy were vocal on the pitch and stepped up. Ciaran Clark has captained the side and so has David Meyler this campaign but the absence of Coleman has always been telling.
The Everton player is probably our best player and our rightful captain and proved that last night.
As the players sunk to their feet, Coleman emerged from the sideline alongside Glenn Whelan to lift players up and console each and every one of them.
Looking at it, it seems like the obvious thing to do. But looking at the bench it was only Coleman and Whelan that came over to the Irish players gutted as they lay on the ground. We can only guess what they said and whispered in their ears but it was a true captain’s moment from Coleman.
There’s always going to be ifs and buts – what if we had our captain during the qualification campaign? We’ll never know but Coleman at least showed last night that he mightn’t have been available on the field, but he didn’t leave the group.
It couldn’t have been easy for him either to watch on and be unable to do anything about it. But he remained a class act to the end.
