When it comes to Ireland's chances of being at the party when the 2018 World Cup starts in Russia next summer, the mood is rather downcast after disappointing results against Georgia and Serbia which have pushed Martin O'Neill's side down to third in UEFA Group D.
But what does John Giles make of the situation?
Speaking to Dave at the John Giles Foundation Golf Classic at Clontarf Castle as always on a Thursday, John started off by discussing the psychological factors in Irish performances.
"My take on it is, when we have something to lose in the matches, we go into our shells. We fall back and we hope to see the game out and there's evidence of that. We played against Serbia in the first match of the competition and we scored in two minutes. We played against Georgia last week, we scored in two minutes and fell back," he said.
"Now, if we go back to previous matches when we played Germany in a must-win game, under Trapattoni when we played France and played brilliantly - never played like that before or since. There was another match in this particular group. There are one or two when we go behind in a must-win - Germany particularly last year was the best team we played last year because we had to win, because there's a fear factor in footballers that when you go in front, 'we've got something to lose now' so we sit back.
"Now, we did it in Serbia in the first match, we fell back. We went 2-1 down and could have gone 3-1 down and then started to play because it releases the players. So [against Serbia on Tuesday night], we went behind and did our best but before we went behind, we actually looked like a team that was going to play because we had to. We had to do something."
Ireland at least know that to have any chance of a playoff place in the qualifiers, both Moldova and Wales will have to be beaten as well as other groups falling in our favour.
And given the edge that could provide mentality wise, John explained his expectations for the final two games.
"Again, this is a match we have to win. You'll see a different attitude to this particular match. There'll be no sitting back and we're at our best when we have to do that. Now, I think we're capable of winning it with the right players on the pitch because as I keep saying, there's no great teams out there. We're inclined to exaggerate the good points of teams when we go in," he said.
And as for beyond the qualifying campaign and the lack of players coming through, especially in the Wes Hoolahan mould - at 35 this could be his last campaign - John had this to say: "That's when we're going to find the loss. But again I'll go back to when he was there for the last 5-6 years, he wasn't used anyway, so he's not going to be such a loss. He should be but he hasn't been," he said.
Head to the podcast section for the full chat with John.
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