So what next?
It's all done and dusted as far as Ireland are concerned. The great migration, the songs, the chants, the streets swept, the wins and the loses. Done and dusted to be packed into a box for at least another two years. Why can't everyday be a major tournament day?
Obviously enough, that would take the lustre off it a bit but jaysus it's difficult facing up to the realisation that it's all over.
So what next?
On to World Cup qualifying. We've found a new goalkeeper, we've found at least one centre half and we've found a midfield trio that we can base everything on for the foreseeable future. It could have been so much worse but there are still things that need to be considered. We went into the tournament with the oldest squad and now it's time to replenish the stock. While we don't want to preempt any retirement announcements, out go Keane, Given and O'Shea. Soon to be followed by Whelan, Murphy and Walters.
The obvious worry with all that is the absolute dearth of strikers that we have at our disposal. Take Murphy and Walters out of the equation and the reliance on Shane Long becomes even more clear. And even at that, it's seems fairly obvious that Martin O'Neill doesn't see the Southampton man as the goalscorer to take us to Russia in 2018.
Having arrived back in Dublin yesterday, O'Neill spoke to the media with thoughts already turning to World Cup qualification and the Ireland boss was up front (excuse the pun) with what we lacked.
It would be nice to have a forward. We don’t have a Gareth Bale. We don’t have that. When Robbie doesn’t play — and obviously his career is in the latter stages — then we don’t actually have a natural goal scorer in that sense.
So if Shane Long is more of a second striker, where is the goalscorer going to come from?
The higher up the players are playing the better it is, let’s be fair. But I don’t have a problem seeing natural talent there and thinking just because he’s not playing Premier League football that he might not be able to improve with us.
Which leads us to the Championship. In that regard, Scott Hogan and Joe Mason are perhaps the two most obvious candidates to step into the breach immediately.
On Brentford striker Hogan, there's no doubt that, with his form at the end of last season, he'll be one that O'Neill will be looking to have a decent chat with in the coming weeks and months.
He's another one who has come to the fore. He looks like he's got a little bit of pace as well.
As for Mason, who made the move from Cardiff to Wolves back in January, the Ireland boss has taken a look and is likely to be an interested spectator at Molineux come the start of the new season.
I'll have a little look at him again. Sometimes it's difficult to make a judgement on a player who is playing a couple of leagues below as to whether they could step up and do a job with this intensity at the minute.
What we're taking from all that is, time to get on the Scott Hogan bandwagon as soon as possible.
[Irish Examiner]
