The sickening sense of failure has yet to subside for some Republic of Ireland internationals returning to club football.
Stephen Ward, Jeff Hendrick and Robbie Brady could return to the Burnley squad for this weekend’s Premier League clash with Swansea.
Manager Sean Dyche admits that the players are still struggling to come to terms with the humiliating defeat they suffered at the hands of Denmark.
The 5-1 loss at the Aviva Stadium ended their hopes of making it to the 2018 World Cup and marked one of the meekest Irish displays ever at Lansdowne Road.
“The Irish lads are okay. I wouldn’t say they’re great. They’re obviously very disappointed,” Sean Dyche told the Burnley website.
“These are really good guys and they have taken it as a bit of knock, not just the fact they haven’t made it, the game (losing 5-1) and all that.
“But they are in a group here who accept them back in very quickly, with open arms and say: ‘come on lads, we’ve got to get on with it.’
“There’s a resilience about that and I think they’ll be fine.
“They have come back into the group they see all the time on a day-to-day basis and you get that little feel-good factor of being amongst your own as well.
“I think there’s a little bit of that and it calms everything down, away from the rigours and pressures of what’s gone in and gets them clear-minded again about their team-mates and the things we are looking to achieve.
“We had a nice light session today to get them all aligned again and they were decent.”
