Doherty: “Andorra was a big win for us”

Republic of Ireland right-back Matt Doherty believes that the win against Andorra will help the Irish squad as they prepare to take on Hungary tomorrow night in Budapest (7pm). Ireland secured their first victory under Stephen Kenny at the 12th attempt and the Spurs man believes it was vital.

“It was a very big win for us in terms of our confidence as we obviously hadn’t won a game in a long time. It was great to wipe the slate clean, get the win and hopefully kick on from there. It was starting to get to the point that no matter who we played against, it was going to be a difficult game but now we go into the Hungary game with a different mindset.”

Doherty believes he has seen a growing maturity among some of the younger members of the squad and believes club football appearances is vital to creating that maturity.

“I think a lot of them (younger players) have matured quite a bit but I think that comes down to club football as well. Some of them have had tough seasons where they have just fought off relegation and that can mature you a lot. We have some good youngsters here and there is no doubt about that. There are more youngsters than senior players and we all need to step-up.”

The right-back believes that some progression has been made despite the wretched run of results during Stephen Kenny’s tenure so far.

“Results wise it doesn’t look great for us but there have been performances where we feel we should have won a few games. I think the progression is there in terms of the style of play and we have never gone away from how we are trying to play just because results haven’t been great. I wont be getting too disheartened or too down even though I know we have lost a lot of games which isnt good enough either”