Matt Doherty desperate for Kenny to stay at helm

Matt Doherty strongly backed Stephen Kenny to remain as Republic of Ireland manager in the wake of Saturday's 1-0 defeat to the Netherlands.

Ireland ended a poor Euro 2024 campaign with another loss, leaving them with six points from their eight games thanks to two wins over Gibraltar.

Kenny's contract is almost up, with strong speculation that the FAI will not offer him a fresh deal. However Doherty insisted the players are fully behind him, and

"I don't know anything about that, I hope that not the case," Doherty told RTÉ Sport when asked about the possibility of Kenny departing.

"Like I said before, this group needs to be coached well and that’s exactly what we’ve been getting for a long time. I hope he stays on. After the game there was a lot of disappointment, we were talking about the little things which are the difference between getting results and not getting results.

"Going back to Stephen, I’ve always backed him, he’s always backed me. I’d love to see him and the coaching staff all to stay. If people really saw what it’s like on the training pitch, in the changing room, how he cares about his players, and how they set us up, the attention to detail... you’d be hard pressed to find someone else to deliver that."

Doherty skippered the team in Amsterdam where Ireland failed to really raise a gallop.

The Dutch sealed their ticket to the Euros with victory, as Wout Weghorst's firsth-half strike settling the contest.

"I was obviously proud to lead the lads out but it was a pretty tough game," Doherty added.

"You can see we left everything we had out there. Things didn't fall for us, Gav [Bazunu] obviously had a great second half. We're disappointed because you go into every game looking to win and we didn’t manage to do