The FAW insist Toshack is in for the long haul

"John is building for the World Cup qualifiers in 2010," said secretary general David Collins after the 1-0 loss to the Republic of Ireland.

"The decision is down to the council members, but I feel that John is the right man for the job.

"We are a small nation and are in transition with many young players."

606: DEBATE Poor tactics and poor finishing yet again contribute to Wales' downfall RE

Toshack's tactics in the Croke Park defeat have been questioned, Wales' inexperienced defence struggling in a 5-3-2 formation with James Collins out of place at sweeper.

Wales rallied after the break, but when Toshack pushed Collins up front late on and switched to 4-4-2 the momentum swung back to Ireland.

"Considering who we had available, I am happy that I got the tactics right," said Toshack.

"When you are without players like Jason Koumas, Danny Gabbidon, Mark Delaney and Robert Earnshaw, you are limited in what you have as attacking options."

I won't be giving up on reaching a major finals with Wales Wales captain Ryan Giggs

Toshack's skipper Ryan Giggs was left flat after the disappointment in Dublin, but vowed to battle on with Wales.

"I don't know what it was, but we just didn't perform in the first half," Giggs told BBC Sport Wales.

"With two teams desperate for results there were never going to be many chances.

"Qualification is obviously very difficult for us now, but I won't be giving up on reaching a major finals with Wales, you just keep going.

"We feel we've let ourselves and the fans down, but all we want to do is learn from it, put it behind us, and go out and perform against San Marino on Wednesday."

As of Saturday, Wales had only sold around 11,000 tickets for the visit of the Group D minnows to Cardiff's 72,500 capacity Millennium Stadium.

We have to hold competitive games at the Millennium Stadium FAW boss David Collins

Collins concedes that it may be difficult to sell many more, but insists that it was the right decision to hold the game at Wales' largest ground.

"We have to hold competitive games at the Millennium Stadium," said the FAW boss.

"If we had got a good start to our qualification campaign we would have filled the ground.

"We need to get to the position that we did going into the Euro 2004 qualifiers when we put together a string of impressive results.