Republic caretaker boss Don Givens watches Wednesday's action

Givens heads the panel charged with finding a successor to Steve Staunton and that work is expected to be brought to a conclusion over the next week.

"I spoke about the process on Sunday and I won't be speaking about it again until the end of the week," he said.

"It was disappointing to lose at home but it was a decent performance."

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Givens insisted that the new manager, who is expected to be either Giovanni Trapattoni or Terry Venables, will inherit a talented squad of players.

Robinho's 67th-minute strike was the difference and Givens said: "We have got a decent mixture of experienced professionals and promising young players so I think he'll be quite happy when he comes.

"We were missing a few players tonight who will be big players, so I think he's got something to work with.

"We contained them for long periods, plus we gave them some problems as well."

Givens was particularly heartened by the performance of Damien Duff after his 10 months out of the national set-up with a knee injury.

"We all know how good Damien is and to have him back to his best - which he's close to now - is great.

"We're a small nation and we need our best players and Damien's definitely one of those."