NO NEED TO get carried away  – this wasn’t quite Giants Stadium – but it’s been a pretty decent few weeks for Giovanni Trapattoni and Ireland all told.

We had an excellent win in the most important, and trickiest, outing in Macedonia. This, of course, was sandwiched by friendly victories of varying quality but they have served to constantly build confidence and keep the momentum ticking over.

Yep, there’s a sense of feelgood building around the camp, which shouldn’t be underestimated with both Russia and Slovakia in bickering, cranky form themselves.

Macedonia wasn’t a spectacle but Ireland have picked up the lovely habit of now winning games we should be winning after years of drawing them. The team won with high energy, a little bit of help from its big players (Given, Keane) and a knowledge of what it was trying to achieve.

The second half shutdown of the game at 2-0 was pure Italian – something which would please the manager no end- as rather than control possession, Ireland closed off space, defended well and made the game as incident free as possible. Last night’s win, against an Italian side containing Andrea Pirlo and a front three each valued around the €20m mark, continued this theme.

Ireland had little enough fluency going forward but were disciplined, professional and got a result.

There might not be anything pretty or entirely original about what this Irish team is trying to do under Trapattoni but results can conquer all analysis. If there was a checklist for getting the most from a limited bunch of players at international level, then Trapattoni has his side ticking almost each box right now.

• Well organized? Though there were understandable creaks from a weak defence who’d never played together on Saturday, there’s no doubt that everyone now knows their jobs better than ever.
• Team spirit and togetherness? You’d only have to compare the bodies-on-the-line defending and workrate from Ireland in a meaningless friendly to England’s  lack of urgency in competition against Switzerland. We’re hard to beat now and there’s little doubt that we’ll get a performance every time we go out.

Questions about whether this system of playing can take us to the next level (qualification) are of course valid but sort of miss the point. Right now Trapattoni is squeezing the best results he can from this group, which is what a system of playing is all about; there’s nothing to suggest a more expansive style of play would necessarily garner more positive results or that sticking an extra body in midfield would yield more control of games.

Individuals have put their hands up to be counted at a time others have kept their heads down. Stephen Hunt has put serious claims in for a place head of either Duff or McGeady for September; actually he could hardly have given more of himself or done more, the assist last night summing up the energy levels of the man.

Stephen Ward has made himself a valid option at left-back. Keith Andrews has done enough to show himself and Glenn Whelan are the first choice central midfield when fit. Simon Cox has presented as a plan B (or plan C) up front, scoring two goals, which ought have been three but for an incorrect offside decision, and offering something a little different to Keane, Doyle and Long.

Robbie Keane has reminded us that for all his difficulties at club level, that there’s still a reliability of goals in the green jersey. And for all the belief in some areas that Trapattoni is stuck on certain systems and players, he’s already shown that he’s willing to take a punt on a guy on the back of one or two promising performances.

Danger here?

Not that it’s all sweetness and light. There’s the danger of overplaying friendly wins when what we really need is a win in the big competitive games with our group rivals; we also impressed this time last summer before unraveling in October against Russia.

There’s the fact that we still don’t look like a side who have the ability to control the ball or possession for any length of time and while trying to control the tempo of a game by making it scrappy and broken can work, it tends to hit a wall against the better sides.

There’s still the constant threat of our midfield being overrun by numbers – something that’ll remain the case while we play 4-4-2 – and being pulled apart by the technically decent sides, as Russia did in Dublin and Macedonia and Italy did to a lesser extent this past week.

For now Ireland have done all they can and five days in September are shaping up to be compelling. We’ll be an awful lot clearer about the positives and limitations of this group and manager after Slovakia and Russia.