Euro 2012: The Irish morning after the night before Whatever their sleeping arrangements, all round town, the Irish were packing up and moving on, heading north to Gdansk for their encounter with Spain on Thursday. In the market square, which had been a blanket of green ahead of last night's game with Croatia, groups of much more subdued Irish followers sat around nursing their hangovers, reading the Irish papers, hoping that they had imagined last night's result, that it was merely a figment of an alcohol-affected imagination. But no. There it was in black and white headlines, the tale not just of a 3-1 defeat, but of a defensive capitulation that was entirely uncharacteristic of their team. If the Irish cannot quickly relocate the keys to the bus they generally park in front of goal, then their engagement with this tournament will be short-lived indeed. Optimism about the prospect ahead was in short supply: the humour in the bars and cafes was blacker than the German economy. "You know the saying about the Irish fans," one supporter, nursing another stein of the local brew, told me, "win or lose there's always the booze." Moving through the reflective throng this lunchtime, congratulating them on their good-humoured support (only three Irish out of 20,000 were arrested over the weekend), could be seen the figure of the Irish president Michael D Higgins. Surrounded by an eager scrum of paparazzi and television cameras, recording his apparently spontaneous walkabout, he handed out words of consolation and encouragement ("it's not over yet, there's still lots to play for"). Few seemed to believe he meant it. And, taking the place of the Irish, blokes in England shirts started to appear in the square, ahead of watching on the giant screens of the Fanpark Roy Hodgson's first competitive game. Not that they were any more expectant than the Irish. "Been a great start to the tournament so far," one of them told me. So expect we'll stink the placed out. That is the one of the joys of the early stages of an international competition: there is a shifting cast of support, as yet untainted by rejection, united in the optimism of what might lie ahead. Unless they follow England or Ireland, obviously.