Alan Browne insists he has no regrets about taking a penalty in Thursday night's Euro2020 shoot-out in Bratislava, just missing it. The 25 year-old says he is proud to have been offered the responsibility but clearly would have loved if his spot kick had been another step towards a place at the championship finals next summer for Ireland, rather than contributing to the team's exit.
“It was a privilege and if the situation was the same, I’d put my hand up again,” he says. “Obviously I’d have preferred to score it but I said beforehand, I’d prefer to miss myself than see one of my teammates miss.”
The versatile Corkman is in contention to start against Wales on Sunday after having generally impressed when he came on in Bratislava but he accepts that the performance wasn’t quite flawless given scoring opportunities that were missed from play.
“I was involved in a lot of the better chances that we had and maybe could have done better with one or two of them but it’s up to the manager now to make his decision for tomorrow’s game.
“I like to analyse games but not dwell on them,” he continues. “I’ve looked back at the chances that I had but it’s one of those things, one of those nights when it wasn’t going in for us. We just have to take the positives, that we created the chances.”
Browne says he has spoken to Stephen Kenny about his performance and how he would ideally like to play in the team, after establishing himself in the side towards the end of Mick McCarthy's second spell in charge.
“I’ve played as a 10, I like to play in the ‘eight’ role as well and I’ve spoken to Stephen about that but he has his own ideas too about where he wants me to play so we’ll see.
“It’s still early days in terms of the manager coming in and getting his ideas across but we like his ideas.” Thursday’s defeat has left him “gutted,” he says, but “we are all excited about where the team is going, where we are heading for the future.”
