Wales may have lost 5-1 to Slovakia at home in this Euro 2008 qualifying campaign, but Saturday's dire defeat by the Republic of Ireland was the lowest point in John Toshack's reign.

Dreadful doesn't even come close to describing the display from the Dragons on a historic afternoon at Croke Park, though disastrous would aptly summarise what it means for their position in Group D.

Irish boss Steve Staunton was being described by their press in the lead-up to the game as a dead man walking, yet he could scarcely believe his luck at just how easily his average team rolled over the boys from the Principality.

The judgement of the Irish media was that it was impossible to assess the merits of the home side as Wales had been so bad, the always outspoken Eamon Dunphy describing it as, "one of the worst performances from a visiting team in a competitive game that I have ever seen."

The Republic lacked shape and cohesion and would have been annihilated by Germany or the Czech Republic on that display.

The game was Wales' for the taking, but Toshack's players let him down, they were lacklustre, lacked composure and creativity and never seemed to truly believe victory was possible, which it definitely was. However, as bad as the players were, it is time to start asking serious questions about Toshack's tenure as Wales manager.

Established Premiership players have been put out to pasture for a bright new future, but inconsistencies in formation and team selection are doing nothing to establish faith in this bright new dawn.

For a start Tosh must ditch his favourite 5-3-2 formation, reverting to 4-4-2, and actually showing some attacking intent against San Marino on Wednesday would be a start.

He said on the day he was appointed that he would be judged on Wales' attempts to qualify for Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup and that putting pressure on the team to get results until then would be counterproductive. He was right.

But qualification for Euro 2008 has now gone by Toshack's own admission and Wales now face 17 months before World Cup qualifying starts and they play another competitive game with any meaning whatsoever.

So now we can start to judge. John, the pressure is on. We are not impressed.