Instead, they got on a roll over the following six months and managed successive wins over Spain, Malta, Hungary, Northern Ireland and Malta again to qualify for some tournament or other (the name of which escapes one just now). Those victories back in 1989 mark the only time in the history of the game here that the national side has put together five wins on the trot in competitive games. There have been a few four-in-a-rows but only that solitary five-stretch.

Steve Staunton played in each of those wins, starting each game steady as rent at leftback and finishing all but the Northern Ireland one. Next Saturday in Bratislava . . . wonder of wonders . . . he has a chance to become the only man to play in and manage Ireland sides that have won five in a row.

And who among us saw that coming as we watched Wayne Henderson and Paul McShane somehow allow San Marino to score an equaliser with eight minutes to go in Serravalle back in February?

It's a statistic that means nothing and everything. San Marino twice, Wales at home and Slovakia at home were games Ireland should, all things being equal, be expected to win.

But for years . . . and even in the good times . . . the old and oft-remarked-upon problem was that while you might never beat the Irish, there was little enough chance of them beating you either. Brian Kerr's whole tenure famously came and went without a meaningful win over anyone ranked higher in the world than Albania. The win over Slovakia in March was the first time Ireland had beaten a team ranked higher than them since the Holland game in 2001. These, in short, are not achievements to be sniffed at or dismissed out of hand (okay, maybe the 2-1 over San Marino is).

The point is that this run of wins has righted what looked to be a sinking ship and has secured Staunton his job for the rest of this campaign as well as, presumably, the next one. A win next Saturday would open a door to qualification for Austria and Switzerland that had looked not so much closed as electromagnetically sealed after the defeat in Cyprus. It's still a long shot . . . truth be told, it will probably require the first ever six-in-a-row to be completed in Prague the following Wednesday . . . but it's there for them now, in their own hands at a time when they're getting into the happy groove of playing well.

Stephen Carr's injury . . . and the always precarious assumption that yesterday's games in England didn't bring more . . . means the back four pretty much picks itself, although it will be interesting to see whether or not Staunton sticks with the positioning he did in the last Slovakia game which had John O'Shea playing at right-back and Steve Finnan at number three. It seemed a curious one at the time and almost resulted in an early Slovak goal when Finnan . . . plainly through the unfamiliarity of the position . . . got hopelessly muddled and beaten on his outside. We'll take it for now that they'll stay the same, with Richard Dunne and McShane in front of Shay Given but Staunton may decide on a swap.

It is in midfield where, all of a sudden, he has a veritable bevy of options. If we take it as read that Kevin Doyle and Robbie Keane will start in attack . . . for although it can't be ignored that Ireland's two best performances of the campaign, against the Czechs in Lansdowne Road and Slovakia in Croke Park, have come with Andy Reid or Stephen Ireland playing behind a lone striker, in both instances either injury or suspension kept one of the first-choice pair out . . . Staunton is left with just four midfield places for anything up to seven players.

How he decides to square the circle will tell a tale. Reid and Aiden McGeady could hardly have been more emphatic in staking their respective claims to a place in the win over Denmark and in a game Ireland must win, their creativity looks vital. But then, Stephen Ireland has been the chief lock-picker of the campaign so far and has been a central part of Manchester City's fine start to the season, having added a fair amount of bulk (not to mention a slightly suspicious amount of hair) over the summer. And you're hardly going to send a team of fancy dans out to play without someone to do the dirty work so Lee Carsley must be the first name at the tip of the pencil. But you need a bit of balance too so someone will have to play on the left, be it Stephen Hunt or, more likely, Kevin Kilbane. And what of Jonathan Douglas, Ireland's best midfielder against the Czechs all those months ago?

Conundrums, conundrums. Carsley and McGeady are pretty certain bets but after that, it's up to the manager's whims. Reid has had an excellent start to his comeback season at Charlton. Addicks' manager Alan Pardew was so impressed with the work he put in to recover from a long absence through injury that he made him club captain. He also put in a stupendous half against the Danes. Reid is unlikely to be afforded that amount of time and space in a proper game though, even if what he did with that time and space was exactly what Ireland have lacked from their central midfielders for a generation. Ireland's game is a bit more rounded, however . . . and certainly not as achingly onefooted . . . and it could be that he gets the nod.

Certainly it's difficult to see Staunton playing them both in an away fixture, regardless of the impulse to go for the jugular.

Go for it they must, though. A draw will only keep Slovakia . . . who have two games against San Marino to come, don't forget . . . interested. A win, though, and we can start poring over tables and talking about qualification in earnest. Oh and records . . . we can talk about those then too.