And if the parent body itself remains mired in bad vibes, and buried beneath more bad press, then the fortunes of the men’s national football team may have taken over the mantle of most troubled offspring after a concerted period of underachievement.

The side’s last Euro 2024 qualifier - what should be a glamour tie away to the Netherlands in Amsterdam - is just days away and yet the media presence at the FAI’s HQ yesterday was little more than perfunctory.

No swell of cameras or sense of urgency here. When the interviews were done one woman wandered into the press conference room asking how to gain entrance to the main building, which seemed to be locked and unresponsive. Fitting?

The sense of a team, and a sport, being left behind was overwhelming given Irish football’s central nerve centre is surrounded by a smorgasbord of other sporting bodies and facilities in Abbotstown’s Sports Campus.

Most of them are already abuzz with preparations for the Paris Olympics next summer, but the men’s side won’t play another competitive game after this for ten more months. There will be no Joxers in Stuttgart, or anywhere else, this time.

“The mood is good,” said Dara O’Shea. No-one was fooled.

The sense of drift sits suffocatingly across this team like a layer of Saharan sand. 

Stephen Kenny’s time in charge will effectively end once Tuesday’s friendly with New Zealand is over and done. The dream is over, the battle for football’s soul suspended.

O’Shea is one of those players whose start at this level came on Kenny’s watch. The former Dundalk manager helped him along through the U21 grade as well so it was no shock to hear the Burnley defender deliver a ‘do it for the gaffer’ line or two.

“We all want to do really well for the manager. We enjoy playing for him and he has been great to all of us, especially the younger lads, bringing us in, making us feel part of the group and giving us our first Irish cap. It’s just something that we owe to him.” 

The stats have been damning for Kenny who targeted this latest qualifying campaign as the one by which his tenure should be benchmarked, and O’Shea’s suggestion that a touch of bad luck and some fine margins has cost them dearly just doesn’t cut it.

Ireland have been undone time and again, as was the case back in September when they went down 2-1 to the Dutch in Dublin despite a fine start, but O’Shea doesn’t see why they can’t prosper with the same aggressive approach high up the pitch this time around.

“I think we can, there's no reason why we can't. That was our identity and it has been throughout this campaign,. I doesn't matter if you are home or away, you have to try and make an impact, silence the crowd and that's a great way to do it.” 

Even a win, unlikely as it is, will change little. Ireland are limited to a fourth-placed finish regardless and the Netherlands need just one win from their last two games, against Ireland and Gibraltar, to join group winners France in the big show.

Ronald Koeman’s players will break camp and return to their clubs with half an eye on national duties in mind-summer. 

Ireland’s will report back to the day jobs with no such pull on their minds and in the knowledge that there is a lot to be done.

Thirteen of this squad are employed by top-flight clubs in either England, Scotland or Italy but almost half are struggling to get any game time. O’Shea has played eleven times for Burnley this year but had a four-game run where he was left out altogether.

It’s made for a challenging start to his career there after eight years with West Bromwich Albion but the Dubliner has embraced the challenge of working under new boss Vincent Kompany and learning a new way of doing things.

“It was tough mentally,” he said of that spell on the sidelines at a club that sits bottom of the table with just four points from the first dozen games. “There wasn't much words said to me, to be honest.

“I don't know why that was, I think that's just the way he handles things, I had to get my head around that and work hard, put myself back in the frame, which I have done, playing consistently for the last few games and I am really enjoying it.”