"Georgia probably had more possession of the ball than we did in the first half on Monday and I think they lacked a belief in themselves to do a bit of damage.
"There were times when they were getting to the half-way line and instead of going at the Irish team, they were turning back and giving it back.
"They were quite happy with the no score and I just felt watching it in the first half, they looked like a team that was waiting to be beaten. I don't think there was any ambition about them.
"I would recognise it because in my early days with the Irish team in the '60s, that's the way we used to be.
"We were a mickey mouse outfit, there was no morale, we didn't have a manager picking the team and I played with that team. When I played in matches where we'd play maybe Spain and you'd be going well in the first 15-20 minutes but we were all waiting to be beaten - and we were!
"And I felt that about the Georgia team whereas in the first half they could have gone at us and didn't. So when you have that mentality in the team, it's only a matter of time before you're beaten.
"My take on every match is to go into it with an open mind because playing in the Irish team particularly, where we'd say a 'draw would be a great result' but we could have won the match. I've seen it but you won't win it if that's your expectation.
"If you're a goal ahead, more than likely you'll draw the match because that was in your head before that it would be a great result.
"But in fact it mightn't be a great result depending on what happens. The best approach to any match is to just take it on its merits.
This is the Spanish National Football team which played Ireland at Sevilla, Spain in November 1965, and which was expected to form the basis of Spains World Cup squad to travel to England in 1966 (AP Photo)
"We went to Germany and got a result in Germany [last year]. We were a bit lucky but we got a result. We got a 1-1 draw but you wouldn't put your house on it coming off the World Cup and all that.
"With the Irish team in the bad old days, we were world champions of moral victories but we weren't getting it over the line because we didn't expect to.
"If we were beating Spain, for example, 1-0 and actually we did in the famous playoff for the 1966 World Cup where we went a goal ahead of Spain, no way were we going to win that match. We lost 4-1 in the end. Then we played them in the playoff in Paris and we just played them. The Irish team were saying '[Spain] weren't that good, were they?' We'd just been beaten 4-1 and we were sitting in the dressing room and we're saying 'they weren't that good'.
"So lucky enough we played Spain soon after the first match and they beat us 1-0 in a tight game because our mindset going into them was that if we played them, we had a bit of a chance against them.
"But it was too late. We should have been saying that before the [first] match."
John was speaking on Off The Ball:
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