He admitted that he hates losing, but Mick McCarthy says he will take the positives from the Republic of Ireland's 2-1 defeat by Nigeria at Lansdowne Road.
The African side, who play England in the World Cup next month, ended the Republic's two-year unbeaten home run, but have given McCarthy an insight into how Cameroon might play against the Irish in their opening Group E clash on June 1.
Speaking after the game on Thursday, the Republic boss said: "I'll take more positives than negatives out of tonight.
"I hate losing - I've just said that to the players - but they shouldn't hang their heads, they've had a good couple of years.
"We could have had four or five goals tonight. Their keeper's played well and we've missed a couple of chances. We've had chance after chance and I think we deserved an equaliser."
Commenting on his team's opening match in Japan, against the African Nations Cup champions, McCarthy continued: "Cameroon will not be mugs and we will not take them lightly – I think they're better than Nigeria.
"It highlights what a difficult task we'll have in the World Cup - but we played well tonight. I'm pleased with the performance - but not the result."
"I'm sorry we didn't give the crowd a bit more to shout about but they've given us a great send-off. They've been wonderful."
He added: "This has given us a lot to think about. I joked about losing this game - and we didn't mean to lose it - to rein a few people in on the expectation level.
"Maybe things had gone a bit easy for us here. We turned up, played well, won, and everybody thinks we're great guys. So maybe this result is what we need to jerk us back into reality.
"If you look at the stats it's a game we could have won and possibly should have won. But at this stage I am looking for spirit, performances, fitness, and the manner in which we played the game, and all those things were very positive."
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