The first spilt milk of the Martin O’Neill era and if there are tears worth crying it’s only because the losing of the game carried echoes of more careless times.

A promising start let down by some thoughtless defending, a couple of missed chances leaving Ireland ripe for the picking as time wore on. Serbia aren’t the first side to go home plump on Irish generosity; on this evidence we’re no closer to seeing the last one either.

Martin O’Neill had maybe a little less jaunt to his step when he came in afterwards. It wasn’t that he was particularly downbeat – he doesn’t really do downbeat. But it was another small splash of the reality of what he has at his disposal all the same.

"I was pleased with a lot of aspects of the game. We started off very brightly, had a goal disallowed – not the person who put the ball in the net – and then we got a goal, a really good goal. We could have made it 2-0, and at international level that would have been big for us.

Bit hesitantly
"But we started off a little bit hesitantly in the second half. But we had moments in the game against a very, very decent side, I thought there was lots of the game that I was very pleased with. I'm genuinely pleased with a lot of the game.

“Disappointed of course to lose the match but genuinely there were some things there that I was delighted with.”

In the end, the pair of chances missed by Shane Long had a greater effect on the outcome than the one he converted.

Both set up by some eye-catching pieces of craft from Wes Hoolahan, neither finish carried the confidence needed and the door was left ajar for Serbia to come back.

“It was it was a terrific pass from Wes,” said O’Neill of the second chance. “I thought with [Shane’s] confidence high he might have taken it another yard and put it in. I think he’s frustrated that he didn’t get his hat-trick. It didn’t happen.

“In terms of his contribution, where he wants to improve in his overall ability as a centre -forward is to take it in and bring others into the game. I think he’s doing well.

“We created the chances tonight. That was very pleasing. They weren’t half-chances or quarter-chances. Had we taken them, we would have gone on to win the match.”

Ah well. We know this is work in progress and that baby steps are going to be the way of it for a while. Finding a place for the scuttle and shuffle of Wes Hoolahan has been a neat trick and tells of a possible future of milk and honey.

On nights like this, your heart can sink a little at the thought that Hoolahan’s first involvement with an Irish senior team was the friendly against Greece in November 2002, the interim game between Mick McCarthy leaving and Brian Kerr arriving. He didn’t get a game that night in Athens and has spent the dozen years since mostly not getting a game either.

You watched him in action last night, all bustle and bristle and brain, and you couldn’t but feel it a pity that a succession of Ireland managers never saw their way clear to find a place for him. Not just for the player he is but for the sort of side that has to be built to house him.

Hoolahan is a 10. Not a second striker, not an attacking midfielder – a 10. He isn't there to get on knock-downs from the big man, or at least that's not all he's there for. All night here in what was only his 11th cap, he was a head-up schemer – a proactive conduit for possession more often than a reactive opportunist in search of it.

An error
Had Ireland just gone out looking to lamp the ball long, they would have excised him from the game. Instead, they got it down and played it through midfield and he flourished as a result.

Everything that was good from Ireland went through him. If he made an error all night, it was his first touch of the game when he feathered Glenn Whelan’s sweet volley to the net when it would have gone in anyway.

He was onside as it happened but by getting a touch only a couple of yards from the line, he gave the linesman a decision to make. The flag went up, erroneously as it happened.

But from there, he ran the show. After Long nipped in on Branislav Ivanovic’s backpass to score Ireland’s goal, Hoolahan made it his night’s work to provide the Tipperary man with more.

Twice he found a pass that few saw only him and twice Long fluffed them. It meant the Hull striker had a headful of regret to take back to England with him.

“It’s frustrating you know, I thought I did a lot of things right you know and caused them a few problems but sadly it will be remembered for the two misses I had.

“Nine out of 10 times in training you’d take them and sadly they didn’t go in for me today. It’s nice to get a goal, nice to play up front with Wes as well, I think he enjoyed setting me up and it’s a striker’s dream when you have someone like Wes behind you.”

Somewhere on the west coast of America, Robbie Keane will have been having similar thoughts.