Marc Wilmots pleased to see his Belgium players silence their critics

For O’Neill’s men, victory against Italy is the key.

You can’t even question this one – Belgium dominated in the first half, always seeming the more unsafe side.

The Irish tried their upmost to prevent the tie slipping away from them, but the Belgians stuck the nail in the coffin on 70 minutes when Lukaku popped up with his second goal.

Witsel heaped praise on Lukaku, saying the Everton striker should have been made man of the match instead, for his two goals.

The two-time defending champions Spain now lead Group D with a full six points after a 1-0 win over the Czech Republic and 3-0 victory against Turkey.

The win propelled Belgium into second place in the Group of Death.

De Bruyne described the result as “part one of two”, adding, “we were under pressure before today and we came out with the right response”.

As it happened, however, a resurgent Belgium scored three times in 22 minutes, two of the goals coming from well-executed counter-attacks, and denied their opponents a scoring opportunity.

Their speed and fluidity improved, with the introduction of Thomas Meunier and Yannick Carrasco giving them a menace out wide which had been missing in their opener.

De Bruyne himself did nothing to discourage suggestions he would be replaced for their second Group E match after his poor performance, but Wilmots insisted he was always going to pick the Premier League pair.

Replaced a visibly exhausted Hoolahan with 20 minutes remaining and did a passable impression of the Norwich City man, and was one of few in the Ireland team who looked capable of matching the Belgians in a technical sense.

Ireland struggled to retain possession and were repeatedly hit on the counter-attack and they will have to be considerably better against the Italians if they are to fix the damage.

– Republic of Ireland failed to have a shot on target in a major tournament game for the first time since the 1994 World Cup (vs Norway).

They had a good chance to double their lead in the 55th minute, but Witsel fired straight into the grateful arms of goalkeeper Darren Randolph. Meunier dispossessed James McClean deep inside the Belgian half before quickly sending the ball forward for Hazard.

Belgium are back in business, and so is Lukaku. “We can feel very sorry for ourselves and say it’s game over, or take some self-confidence from the way we played three or four days ago against Sweden”.

For Ireland, though, there was nothing but disappointment as their winless run at the European Championships was extended to seven games.

Ireland will be far more positive: they have to attack, and they will.

This was an emphatic response from Belgium to their critics.