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I cannot remember feeling as low during a match commentary as I did on Saturday night when that Jonny Evans clearance hit Aaron Hughes and bounced passed Maik Taylor into the net to level the scores in Chorzow.

I was gutted for the players who had given so much and came within a whisker of recording an away win against significant opponents, probably for the first time since we beat Austria in 1994 and marked his arrival on the international stage.

Kyle Lafferty scores Northern Ireland's goal away to Poland

Just like that game in Vienna, one player will forever be associated with the game on Saturday night. It was the game in which Kyle Lafferty fulfilled all the great potential that we knew he had as a target man through the middle, the perfect foil for David Healy.

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I have been spending some time looking for positives ahead of the , and I have to say it is not easy.

I do get bouts of supreme optimism at times when I think about the game, but I then tell myself that I am allowing my heart to rule my head - you have probably all been there.

It is the same scenario when you sit with the , work out how you think all the games are going to work out and what the results will be, and when you' have finished, hey presto, Northern Ireland have qualified for the World Cup finals, simple as that.

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