The softly-spoken Newcastle United goalkeeper admitted that his failure to save any of Spain's five penalties in the World Cup contest in Seoul still rankled, as did the manner of Ireland's departure from the competition. He vowed things will be different next time.

"I spoke about taking a penalty before the shoot-out at the World Cup," he said yesterday, when Ireland arrived in Moscow for Saturday's European Championship qualifier against Russia.

"But Packie (Bonner) said I should concentrate on trying to save one, which didn't work too well, so I may as well have taken one.

"To be fair, the five lads were named and we were all positive they would go up and take a good penalty. It was just disappointing we didn't score but that's penalties. It is a cruel way to go out, it's a lottery."

The excitement and eventual heartbreak of their World Cup adventure were still much in evidence when Ireland gathered to resume their competitive programme this week. And, to a man, they all vowed that their involvement in the World Cup finals made them more determined than ever

to repeat the experience.

But for now, the immediate challenge for Given and his colleagues is to become the first Irish team since the Jack Charlton side of the 1988 European championship and 1990 World Cup, to qualify for back-to-back finals. It is a demanding task and Given took encouragement from the sequence of matches Ireland have drawn.

"I made my debut against Russia (1996, 0-2 loss in Mick McCarthy's first match as manager) but I've never played in Russia," he said. "I think it's good we play them first game because of the weather. Russia can get quite chilly so it's a good time of the year to play them.

"Ideally we want to qualify automatically, that is what we all want. We don't want to have to go through play-offs because we've had some heartache over the years with the play-offs against Belgium and against Turkey.

"If we can top the group that will be perfect. But as you know, in football it doesn't always work out that way. In a worst case scenario, if we did finish runners-up it wouldn't be the end of the world. We

would still have a good chance of coming through the play-offs. But ideally we want to come top of the group."

He spoke of the legacy of the World Cup in Japan and Korea. "I think a lot of the lads who went to the World Cup had not tasted a tournament like a major finals before. I think we're all hungry to do that again and go back to the European Championships.

"We want to reach the finals and have a go at that and for the fans as well. To get to Portugal, which is quite handy, would be smashing because Japan and Korea was such a long way to go. To be fair they still turned out in their thousands and full credit to them.

"You learn as you go along and you gain experience and we learned a lot from Japan and Korea. We were together for nearly five weeks and we had a few arguments and a few laughs along the way. That's part and parcel of it all.

"I think we would really like to be involved in the European Championships when we've had a taste of it, and we know what to expect maybe a bit more than before. It (the WC finals) was a great tournament, we really enjoyed it so it would be nice to be involved again."

He dismissed suggestions that the five weeks cooped up in training camp might not have been to everyone's satisfaction.

"I wish we were there a couple of more weeks, to be honest. We were there five weeks and at the end it was just a shame the day after Spain or the next day we were going home and it was just all over. We had been together for so long and then that was it, over, it just came to a sudden death."

"That was a shame afterwards, all the lads went their separate ways and it was a bit of a shame at the end of it all."

On the domestic front, the Donegal man said the challenge for Newcastle United was to repeat their success of last season when they finished fourth in the Premiership.

"It is a real buzz to be back in the Champions League. We watched the draw 10 days ago at home and it was really exciting to see Newcastle among the 32 best clubs in Europe.

"It was really exciting when we saw who we were going to play we've got Feyenoord, Kiev and some team called Juventus so it is going to be good. I'm looking forward to it."

He said the changes made by manager Bobby Robson when he introduced Lauren Robert and Craig Bellamy had helped change the match against Liverpool at the weekend when Newcastle came from 0-2 to tie the game.

The goal Newcastle conceded when Given's pass from defence led to a mistake when his colleague slipped, had not resulted in any recriminations.

"The gaffer is always telling us to play the ball out of defence and I did that," he said. "To be fair, Nobby said afterwards he slipped, his studs went, and had he not slipped and played the ball away there would not have been a problem. It was just one of those things."

It was important he maintained, for Newcastle players to avoid serious injury because their squad was not as big as their main rivals. And it was a huge encouragement to them to take a point from Anfield.

"I think Liverpool was a big result for us. Had we lost the game it would have been two defeats in a row for us, which wouldn't have been ideal because we have Leeds coming up next week at home and then Chelsea away. It is a tough kind of start to the programme, but we've had a fairly good start."