“I take the blame for it, it was sloppy” – Shane Duffy

At fault at one end, the reason Ireland came away with a point at the other end.

It was a weird international match, a competitive one at that, with players in pre-season with their clubs and asked to dive into the thick of it on this stage.

Shane Duffy didn’t have a great game overall. He got caught on the ball a few times and he was slow to react to the space he was leaving for Bulgaria to stroll through the middle and score the opener.

It was inevitably though Shane Duffy who rescued the situation as the Celtic loanee rose high like only he does and directed the ball neatly into the bottom corner like he does but he was honest in his assessment of his own performance afterwards.

“It was nice to get the goal at the end but overall a little bit disappointed with the game and result. A bittersweet moment. 

“I probably take the blame for it myself. It was sloppy defending. I didn’t get in quick enough and they punished us.

“I haven’t played a lot of football and it was tough for me to get going at times out there.”

Duffy was named captain for the night and he could see Stephen Kenny’s influence taking hold of the team already, even if they only had three days.

“We had a lot of possession and we had a few chances but we want to win every game and try to go further and get going with this team. 

“Early days under the new manager, a couple of days training and we’re trying to get his ideas in.

“We had a lot of possession, we worked on that in a few days, trying to get our number 8s higher up the pitch and get our front three pressing their back four. Even when we were 1-0 down, we didn’t retreat to just lumping it and that was positive.”

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