Aside from positive results against Iran and Estonia, Ireland's experience of major tournament playoffs have generally been negative ones.

Back in 1965, Ireland were pitted against Spain in a playoff for the following year's World Cup.

The Boys in Green, who were managed by ex-Manchester United midfielder Johnny Carey and could count on the likes of John Giles and a certain Eamon Dunphy, had been grouped with Spain in Group 9 of the European portion of the qualifiers, along with Syria.

However, the Middle Eastern nation pulled out as part of a protest over the lack of qualification places for African and Asian countries.

All of which left, Ireland and Spain alone to intertwine their footballing ceilis and flamencos together for a place in England.

Spain, of course, had talents like Inter Milan great Luis Suarez in their squad but as John Giles told Off The Ball recently, the Ireland teams of that era were also hamstrung by a mentality which often saw them "waiting to be beaten" by stronger sides.

That being said though, Ireland did win the first match 1-0 at Dalymount Park on May 5th 1965 thanks to a goalkeeping errror:

However, Spain got their revenge in more comprehensive fashion that October by a 4-1 scoreline at the eternally beautiful Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Seville with Ireland taking the lead through Andy McEvoy before a Jesus Maria Pereda hat-trick and Carlos Lapetra dagger through the heart brought parity over two matches:

That left both sides facing a playoff on neutral ground to separate them and here's where the mentality John was talking about kicks in a little:

"If we were beating Spain, for example, 1-0 and actually we did in the famous playoff for the 1966 World Cup where we went a goal ahead of Spain, no way were we going to win that match. We lost 4-1 in the end. Then we played them in the playoff in Paris and we just played them. The Irish team were saying '[Spain] weren't that good, were they?' We'd just been beaten 4-1 and we were sitting in the dressing room and we're saying 'they weren't that good'.

"So lucky enough we played Spain soon after the first match and they beat us 1-0 in a tight game because our mindset going into them was that if we played them, we had a bit of a chance against them.

"But it was too late. We should have been saying that before the [first] match."

As John recalled, it was a 1-0 defeat in Paris' Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir - home of Jonathan Sexton's former rugby club Racing Metro - which finally saw Spain pip Ireland to a spot at the 1966 World Cup as a lone Jose Ufarte goal put paid to our chances.

But as John said of the mentality, there could have been a 'what if' which could have avoided the need for that playoff match on French soil.

But c'est la vie and hopefully the current Irish squad can avoid a similar fate to the events of 50 years ago this week when they go head-to-head with Bosnia.

John Giles will be on Off The Ball tonight as always on a Thursday to look ahead to the Bosnia playoff first leg.