Players' reaction:It was only his 11th appearance for Ireland so he hasn't endured too many nights like these, when fright sets in when a lead has to be defended, so it was a relatively new experience for Kevin Doyle.

"It feels like we've lost," he admitted, taking little consolation from his fourth goal for his country, so sweetly struck the confidence that might have drained from the Wexford man after a goal-less start to the season with his club seemed to be born again.

"Yeah, it was nice, but it would have been a whole lot nicer if it had been the winning goal," he said. "I'd like to see it again - it's a blank in my mind now. I barely saw it going in to the net after hitting it.

"I don't get too many from outside the box, to be honest, it's the first one in a while...actually, I can't remember the last one I scored from outside the box," he laughed.

"I had a chance in the first half, but I didn't connect with it. But the balls are like beach balls. They're like the ones you play with when you're younger, they're unreal. We trained with them the other night and it really is like kicking a beach ball, they go all over the place. But when you strike it right they really fly," he said.

While insisting a draw was a creditable enough result in Bratislava, Doyle confessed to some regret that they hadn't gone after a third goal, to kill off the game. "It's a pity in the end we didn't push on and get another goal, but what was in our minds was to hang on to our lead, and unfortunately we didn't. So, yeah, it's just a huge disappointment we didn't hold on.

"It'll be tough on Wednesday, we know that. I was talking to Robbie (Keane) afterwards and he was saying it was the heaviest pitch he can remember playing on. It was energy sapping. It sucked your boots into the ground. It will probably take its toll . . . but the Czech Republic played on Saturday as well and we have a lot of fresh legs on the bench."

"We'll pick ourselves up and dust ourselves down," said Shay Given. "I said beforehand if we got four points from these two games we'd be happy - we have one, now we have to beat the Czechs. There's no point feeling sorry for ourselves, no point in dwelling on it, we can't turn the clock back. On another night it would have been three points, but we can't go back, we can only look forward."

Slovakia's injury time equaliser? "I saw it alright, but I just couldn't get down to it. We probably should have held on but it was just a lucky break for them. The ball came off Dunny's head. It could have gone anywhere on the pitch but it fell to that guy on the edge of the box. The luck was with them. The guy hit it pretty sweet on the half-volley."

Captain Robbie Keane maintained the theme. "It was just a bit of bad luck," he said of the second equaliser, "it was a killer blow. I think we deserved the win.

"You could see the commitment and desire from the lads out there, every player on the pitch gave it everything. It felt like a defeat.

"Everyone was devastated but we have to pick ourselves up for Wednesday's game.

"It's a massive game and it was always going to be the case that we'd have to go there and win, he said."