STEPHEN KENNY claimed Ireland were ‘convincing winners’ despite scrambling an injury-time penalty to see off Armenia.
The Boys in Green had been comfortable, leading through John Egan and Michael Obafemi goals - but then they lost the plot.
Armenia scored twice in two minutes to pull level with 17 minutes remaining, only to then suffer a remarkable meltdown of their own.
READ MORE: Ireland vs Armenia player ratings: Michael Obafemi again the stand-out but slim pickings otherwise
Robbie Brady scored a VAR-awarded penalty in stoppage time and Armenia finished with nine players after the red mist descended.
Kenny, who has won just four competitive games in 21 attempts, said: “It was a crazy game. But we were convincing winners.
“It should never have been 2-2 but that can happen to teams. We still created chances and scored the (winning) goal.
“I thought we were very good for 70 minutes and the Obafemi goal was brilliant. But then it was absolute madness.
“There are good learnings for us in that, and that was interesting. We needed to get the third goal and we got it.”
Kenny baulked at suggestions that his team lacked a creative edge in this game and said: “That’s very harsh.
“We had a lot of very good chances and we didn’t hit the target on a few of them but Jason Knight, Robie Brady and Jeff Hendrick are creative players, Matt Doherty too.
“It was a good performance and we created some good chances. We’ve scored three goals here and three in our last home game against Scotland.”
But Kenny accepts that Ireland will have to cut out the defensive mistakes if they are to make any impact in Euro 2024 qualifying.
Conor Hourihane, for instance, gifted Armenia their second when a careless square ball was intercepted and put away first time.
Kenny said: “Conor is a terrific passer of the ball and that’s his strength. But he’s the first to hold his hands up and he’s a terrific professional.
“He’s been a really good player for Ireland and individuals can make mistakes.”
But asked if he was concerned at Ireland’s inability to close out games without inviting drama, Kenny said: “It doesn’t worry me at all.
“Today we were 2-0 up and went chasing the third goal when we didn’t need to and had centre halves overlapping in a game we were winning.
“We lost a bit of structure, we lost that in the back three. We were winning 2-0, not losing 2-0 and went chasing a third goal and got punished.
“We got the winner and overall it’s a really good performance with a few minutes of madness.
“We spoke about it in the dressing room afterwards and the need to learn from not being exposed when you’re winning.
“But we have to keep clean sheets and we want to improve.”
Armenia boss Joaquín Caparrós was crying foul after losing to that late penalty, before Artak Dashyan and Hovhannes Hambartsumyan were sent off in the mayhem.
He said: “We’re very upset with the result. I don’t know why this always happens to us in the Republic of Ireland, it happened in 2011.
“Maybe it’s a coincidence, but when it happens twice you have to think about it.
“I never said there wasn’t a foul for the penalty, I said there was no corner in the build-up.
“But the referee doesn’t watch the repeat of corner situations (with VAR) - only goals, so he didn’t see it.”
And Caparrós added: “At 2-2, the Irish side was really nervous. We still had a lot of chances to score and win the game.
“But it was clear there should have been no corner in the lead up to the penalty.”
