John O’Shea says Ireland players need to increase levels of ‘dedication and sacrifice’ after Portugal mauling

But the interim boss has suggested that his squad need to increase their levels of ‘dedication and sacrifice’ if they are to become a major tournament team after indicating he was dissatisfied with physical levels in the concluding fixture of the June window.

Portugal ran out comfortable winners in Aveiro, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s second half brace resulting in a 3-0 scoreline that was an accurate reflection of the balance of play.

It wasn’t the result that O’Shea needed to build momentum on the 2-1 win over Hungary seven days ago, and his future is now out of his hands with director of football Canham and board member Bonner – who is also part of the sub-committee looking at the manager hunt – embedded with the squad for this trip.

“I’ve been constantly speaking to them but it’s been about the games, as simple as that, and obviously then it’s a case of let’s see what happens over the next few days, it’s definitely whetted my appetite for more” said O’Shea in the aftermath, instead preferring to concentrate on the specifics of the game.

“I’ve said to the players in there about what it takes now for this group, and the players that are missing this evening as well, that there’s more to come and they have to give more.

“They’ve shown it in glimpses and you have to give more to get to major tournaments, in terms of that dedication and sacrifice.

“It’s about winning competitive matches and the group have to realise that when they get back to their clubs, to get playing as quickly as possible because when you think, the games come around so quickly, lads maybe have decisions to make about the club that they’re at or are they going to get in, are they going to get playing…

“You see the level – I’ve spoken about it a couple of times – the level of fitness and strength that’s needed to win these (June) matches. The timing for our players has always been a little bit tricky with the balance of the season.

“We came out on top against Belgium, Switzerland and Hungary in terms of one v ones, two v twos, three v threes (in terms of head to head battles).

“Obviously they (Portugal) broke through that a couple of times and got their rewards. That was the frustrating one, that they kind of rolled out of a few tackles that we had been really aggressive with and we had been winning them.”