Matt Doherty believes Ireland can go to Budapest on Tuesday to play Euro 2020-bound Hungary seeking to build an unbeaten run.

For the Spurs man, it is all about confidence, a confidence he admits was sadly lacking all through last autumn’s disastrous campaign for the Boys in Green.

“It’s hard to put your shoulders back and say, ‘right lads, let’s win this game’, when we’re not actually winning anything,” admitted the 29-year-old.

“Looking back on it, we left games behind us last autumn and in March.We should have beaten Slovakia in the Euro play-off, and Wales and Bulgaria too in the Nations League.We should have got a draw against Serbia, and Luxembourg was just one of those nights.”

What all those games had in common, the Serbian one apart, was that Ireland could not put the ball in the opposition’s net.

Doherty addressed the confidence issue himself, in the wake of the Wembley disaster last November, with a stirring call to arms for Ireland when he said the young players had to grow up fast — that this was international football and it waited for no one to mature.

Now Doherty finds himself surrounded by even more younger and hopeful Irish players as the likes of Adam Idah and Jamie McGrath seek a part in Stephen Kenny’s plans for the remaining World Cup qualifiers and beyond.

The constant changing of the Irish starting XI because of injuries and Covid-19, and the introduction of yet more youthful talent, leads to situations such as the 53rd minute in Andorra last Thursday night when Ireland trailed 1-0.

“We got our act together after that and turned it around and you could see the confidence in some of the younger players coming off the pitch with the win under their belts. Now we’ve got to get on a run where we win, or lock down a draw if we can’t win.”

Doherty doesn’t know yet if Kenny will ask Seamus Coleman and himself to play in the same team on Tuesday. Mick McCarthy tried it once, away to Gibraltar more than two years ago, and said “never again”.

In an era when Irish football is short of elite-level talent, Coleman and Doherty excel in the same position. Kenny has teamed up the pair and Doherty says he has no issues with playing alongside the Everton player.

“We can do it, there’s no doubt in my mind of that and without hurting each other’s game.”

As he trains with Ireland for the last game of the season, Doherty is cut off from the goings-on at Spurs where former Chelsea and Inter Milan manager Antonio Conte seemed to be the obvious replacement for Jose Mourinho at Tottenham Stadium. But that is now not going to happen.

“I’m in camp here and out of touch, but when we go back for pre-season training, we will all be on trial again with the new boss, whoever he is,” says Doherty.

Another Irish player who will be on trial with the new Spurs gaffer is Troy Parrott, whose first brace of international goals saved the day for Ireland in the Pyrenees last week.

“Troy did brilliantly for us against Andorra, no doubt about that. He’s coming on with every game he plays, but he will have to catch the manager’s eye when we all go back at club level. It’ll be the same for everyone.”

The former Bohemians player has no beef with Mourinho, now installed as Roma’s manager. It was Mourinho who brought him to North London from Wolves last summer for a big fee and then dropped the Irishman, after making Doherty a first-choice defender at the start of the season.

“I got a fair crack of the whip from Jose, I’ve no complaints at all about that,” he says. “I think I made 27 appearances for Spurs last season in all, which is not bad.

“Actually I used to see more of Jose than most of the players,” he laughs, “because our houses were very close to each other.”

If he has a gripe, it is that he caught the Covid virus, and like so many who similar suffered, the bug knocked a right hop out of him.

“I was in the Spurs team and in the Ireland team when I got it and I admit it took its toll on me when I came back. But look, there were many, many people worse off than me.”