Between them, Ireland's front three against Azerbaijan might have represented the future but, for the here and now, there was frustration.
None of the three - Adam Idah, Troy Parrot and Aaron Connolly - have yet celebrated their 21st birthday and they are still in the novice stage of their senior international careers.
For Idah, there were "goosebumps" when he looked into the Aviva Stadium crowd and saw his family present, with them making the trip from Cork to finally see him play in the flesh in the green jersey.
But otherwise, as he said repeatedly, it was an afternoon of "frustration", with all three shooting blanks.
It was left to a centre-half again, this time Shane Duffy, to hit the back of the net for what was, in this case, a goal to save the Ireland team's blushes.
Idah was asked later if the young guns were feeling the pressure to perform on this stage.
“No, we all play football, that’s our job," said the Norwich striker, who in fairness was the pick of the three forwards and who was excellent against Portugal on Wednesday night.
"We grew up wanting to do this and if you are under pressure doing this then you shouldn’t be here.
"These are the moments we have all been waiting for. We have little experience, but how else do you get experience than in times like this?
"These are the opportunities we have to take and learn from. We keep building as a team and young players and I’m sure it will all work out in the long run.
"It was an unbelievable experience, goosebumps, my family came down and it was honour to be there first time in 2 years when no-one could come to a game, the pressure's on so long delighted to have them there.
"It's obviously my job is to score goals and obviously I'm disappointed not to put them to bed. I haven't scored yet for Ireland.
"All I want to do is get off the mark, want to keep building on that, keep working hard, keep improving on that and see how it goes.”
The bottom line is that Ireland have now recorded just one victory - in a friendly against Andorra - in 15 games under Kenny.
"Not to get three points is quite disappointing after a disappointing result (away to Portugal)," Idah remarked.
"Obviously a point is better than being on zero points. We got a point on the board and we just have to keep fighting and keep hungry in the next few games.
“It is frustrating, especially in the second half when we had a lot of ball but couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net. It is quite difficult when that’s happening.
“We know that we need to win games and that’s what we want to do.
"That’s football. It is quite a new squad and it does take time to build with a lot of new players there.
"We are building, we drew today, although we obviously want to win. There are still a lot of games to come and we want to prove people wrong.
"Obviously it's quite frustrating where we are now.
"But like I said we're still building as a team, still learning, we have to take each game as it comes and want to go out and do the best we can, and who knows what we can do."
Despite the gap that has developed between Portugal, Serbia - who Ireland host on Tuesday - and the rest in the qualifying table, Idah claims that qualification is still a possibility for Kenny's charges.
"We believe in ourselves as a team and when we came in we 100% believe we can qualify, fight to the end," he said.
"We're hungry for it, to fight for three points, and that's what we can do.”
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