Soccer

Northern Ireland's Stuart Dallas determined to return to winning ways in Dublin

Stuart Dallas (right) could not help Northern Ireland to victory in Austria or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but promises a "top performance" in Dublin next month. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press
Stuart Dallas (right) could not help Northern Ireland to victory in Austria or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but promises a "top performance" in Dublin next month. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press Stuart Dallas (right) could not help Northern Ireland to victory in Austria or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but promises a "top performance" in Dublin next month. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press

TRYING too hard might have contributed to Northern Ireland’s struggles to score in the Uefa Nations League but Stuart Dallas has promised they won’t lack for effort next time out.

That, of course, is the so-called friendly against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Thursday November 15, and although NI may still be able to avoid relegation from Group B3 at home to Austria three days later, the Tyrone man insists they won’t be taking it easy in the Aviva.

“The Republic’s a massive game for us, although it’s a friendly, everybody knows what it means.

“Obviously it will depend on the result elsewhere [Austria v Bosnia-Herzegovina, also on November 15] if we have something to play for in the Austria game.

“It’s a big game, I don’t think it needs built up any more than what the press will do. We as players know what it means and you can be sure that there’ll be a top performance put on.”

The Leeds United wideman wasn’t critical of colleagues who missed chances, arguing that fortune has not favoured NI in this new competition:

“It’s all ifs and buts now – you’ve got a split-second to make a decision. You need a bit of luck in games too, I believe, and we haven’t had the rub of the green. Look, we’ll re-group, we’ll go again in November, we’ve two big games.”

Perhaps, as manager Michael O’Neil had suggested, the emotional post-match moments explain some self-criticism from players, but Dallas was harsher on the visitors’ display in Sarajevo than most of the media were.

“Look, we set ourselves high standards,” said Dallas. “For the first 25 minutes we were the better team, created chances, played on the front foot.

“But when they scored I felt we went into our shell a little bit, I don’t know why that was.

“We started the second half, we tried to press, and we had a chance at 1-0…If that goes in, it changes the game, but then they break away and score the second goal.”

Both Bosnia strikes came from Roma star Edin Dzeko, his 54th and 55th international goals in fewer than 100 appearances, and his continuation of that scoring return did not surprise Dallas:

“If you give a striker of that quality chances, he’s going to punish you. It’s not that we performed badly, we did do all right in spells, but it’s disappointing, we came to win the game and we couldn’t do that.”

The opening goal resulted largely from a slip by young left-back Jamal Lewis, but Dallas had sympathy for the 20-year-old:

“It’s bad fortune, you can’t pinpoint anyone. Jamal’s a young player and he’ll learn from this, it could happen to anybody,

“We could have been 2-0 up before they even scored but, as I said, we went into our shell a little bit.

“Again we’ve had chances to get something out of the game but we haven’t been able to do that. At this level, you get punished”. No matter how hard you try…