It was always going to be a tall order for Ireland to get anything away in France, and while the 2-0 scoreline was far from a disgraceful one, few will come away from the game inspired by what they saw from Stephen Kenny's team.
The performance was lacklustre at best, failing to offer any sort of attacking threat. At the other end of the pitch, they often struggled to deal with the supreme quality in the French attack and were perhaps fortunate only to concede a couple of goals.
While this result was expected, the overall showing was disappointing when viewed in a wider context. Ireland certainly did not build on the progress they made when these same two teams met back in March, only looking to have gone backwards since then.
Richie Sadlier sums up the big issue with Stephen Kenny era
It was said prior to this international break that Stephen Kenny needed at least three points to save his job, but this showing will not inspire confidence that that all important victory will come against the Netherlands on Sunday night.
A win in either of those games was always unlikely, although the manager only found himself in that scenario as a result of a long run of disappointing results in competitive fixtures.
Kenny did a lot right in terms of bringing through young players and improving the style of play after his appointment. However, the issue is that the fruits of those labour seem no closer to coming to fruition. As a result, questions will rightly be asked about the manager's future.
Speaking on RTÉ after the game, Richie Sadlier perfectly summed up why Kenny is coming under increasing pressure in his position.
Ogbene's comments 'we gave everything, we came up short, lets focus on the next one', that's a summary of the Stephen Kenny era.
We seem to consistently come up short, but we say we will pick the positives and move on. Unfortunately it is happening too many times...
Stephen will do what Stephen does. He will pick the positives from the performance in a game we didn't get the result we were looking for. Tonight was a result we needed.
He will talk about the effort, mention Ogbene's chance, do the usual if onlys and 'maybe we could have done a bit more'. He will praise the character and attitude of the players and say there will be a full house on Sunday and say three points against the Netherlands will change it all...
It's what he has said after every game. We have won one in four now, Stephen's record in competitive games is that he wins one in five. It's five wins in 25.
We're here to qualify for a tournament. We're not here to praise players for working hard, we're not here to praise the fact that we created a chance in a second half performance where the opposition created probably seven chances and completely dominated.
France are a better team and we were always going to lose. The bigger picture that we need to start focusing on here is where is this team going? Where are we headed?..
Don't fall into the trap of concentrating on the top two when we were outplayed and beaten by Greece. That doesn't stack up.
It's difficult to argue with that.
There was so much good will around Stephen Kenny for much of his tenure, with fans showing a huge amount of patience as they were fully behind what he was doing with the team. Unfortunately, questions are now being asked as to whether he is capable of helping the side take the next step.
The game against the Dutch on Sunday night could go a long way towards giving us the answer to that query.
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