There I was feeling a bit sorry for Mick McCarthy after Wednesday night's misery in Bursa when he blew it, losing my sympathy and, I suspect, the sympathy of some of those still standing by him.

Why? "When I go back to Dublin I think I will change my name by deed poll to `Lucky'," he said, with more than a hint of self-pity, after the game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but looking back at Ireland's Euro 2000 qualifying campaign and the two play-off games against Turkey, I can't see where luck, or the lack of it, played even the minutest part in the team's failure to book themselves a place in next summer's finals in Holland and Belgium.

Indeed, McCarthy's decision to blame the Gods for our fate was very nearly as ludicrous as Craig Brown's assertion that bad luck had cost his Scottish side a Euro 2000 place, when he should have been honest enough to admit that a woeful performance in Glasgow against a marginally less abysmal England, bailed out by Paul Scholes' alertness, was the reason Scotland will be spending next summer at home (and if Christian Dailly is an international footballer I'm a Charlie Landsborough fan). But, to give him his dues, McCarthy has never come out with as silly a statement as the one Kevin Keegan provided on Thursday: "I know you'll laugh, but we have a chance to win Euro 2000," he said. Laugh? My sides needed stitching.

"I made a few mistakes along the way, not least in my team selection for our game in Croatia and my choice of tactics against Macedonia in our final group game, but I will learn from them - honest." If that had been McCarthy's summing up of his efforts to lead Ireland to the Euro 2000 finals we could have said "fair enough", and happily agreed he deserved a chance to lead them in to the next World Cup qualifying campaign. But instead he insisted on blaming bad luck.

"We've been to the Balkans, we've been to a war zone, we're now talking about earthquakes - we've had everything thrown at us in this group. I've had half a dozen players injured or suspended - if they can throw anything else at us between now and next Thursday morning, bring it on," he said after the first leg of the play-offs against Turkey.

Well, life wasn't a bag of laughs either for Yugoslavia during the group stages of the qualifying campaign, but they got on with it and finished top of the group.

Suspensions? Are they not self-inflicted, as Robbie Keane's was for Wednesday's game. So, no sympathy there. And if Keane had been available for the second leg against Turkey would McCarthy even have picked him? He didn't, after all, select the man most likely to score us goals for our game away to Croatia in September when he was suspension free.

Late goals conceded? Bad luck? No. If there was any luck going in that game against Croatia it fell in to Ireland's lap - they were lucky not to lose by more than Davor Suker's 94th-minute winner.

Three days earlier they had produced a wonderful winning display against Yugoslavia at Lansdowne Road. Did McCarthy field the same team, high on confidence after, at times, an exhilarating performance? No. He made four changes (by choice, added to the enforced absence of Roy Keane and Denis Irwin), dropping Niall Quinn and Robbie Keane to the bench.

"Had the gods been less benevolent to the brave, it might have ended up in a six-goal mauling," wrote Peter Byrne in this paper after the game. "Playing Tony Cascarino up front by himself against a team of Croatia's quality was little short of laughable . . . because of the way we opted to play, we were simply left to dig in and hope for the best," said Mark Lawrenson.

So, we got what we deserved in Croatia.

Against Macedonia? Was it bad luck to concede the late equaliser that cost us first place in the group? No, if we're honest. The second-half performance was so negative, so defensive, and so poor that the only wonder was that it took Macedonia so long to break us down.

Maybe if we'd had McGrath, Moran and O'Leary at the back we might have been good enough to defend a lead for half a game, but we don't so we're not. This Irish team's best method of defence is attack, and you don't need to have a coaching course to your name to figure that one out. So, we got what we deserved in Macedonia.

Against Turkey? Were we unlucky to miss out on a place in the finals on goal difference? Not really. At home we were outplayed for most of the second half and few could deny Turkey deserved a point from the game. Wednesday? A Roy Keane effort from 20 yards was the nearest we came to scoring, while at the other end Dean Kiely saved us from a three or four-nil defeat with the bravest of goalkeeping. That's hardly bad luck, is it? So, spare us the "we were unlucky" line. We weren't. Turkey deserved to go through.

Finishing second in a group that included teams of the quality of Yugoslavia and Croatia was a superb achievement, one that McCarthy and his team are entitled to feel proud of. And that performance at home to Yugoslavia is one that can be savoured for some time.

If you think back to when the draw for the group was made there weren't too many of us brimming over with confidence, but as it turned out we are left to ponder what might have been if the manager had adopted a more positive approach to our games in Croatia and Macedonia.

If lessons are learnt from the experience then maybe the next qualifying campaign will prove more fruitful. If they're not, and Lady Luck continues to be blamed for every poor display produced and every late equaliser conceded by the Irish team, then we'll probably be spectators rather than participants at the next World Cup finals.