Stephen Kenny says he feels for Aaron Connolly after an Irish Euro fiasco.

But he has refused to criticise organisation which saw the Albion striker ruled out of at least two Republic of Ireland matches.

Connolly returned to his club after being withdrawn from Thursday’s Euro 2020 qualifier in Slovakia.

Norwich striker Adam Idah suffered a similar fate and both players will miss the Nations League fixture versus Wales, though there is now talk of them being recalled to face and Finland on Wednesday.

That in turn would end any doubt over Connolly being available for his club's game at Crystal Palace next Sunday.

They were found to have been sitting too close to a non-playing member of staff who later tested positive for coronavirus on the flight to Bratislava.

There is no suggestion that Connolly will have to isolate.

The story took a new twist this morning when the Irish Independent reported the staff member's positive result was incorrect, given that a follow-up test on arrival back in Ireland gave a negative reading.

Republic boss Kenny said: "I really felt for the two players, Aaron and Adam. They've come through the Under-15s with Ireland all the way up to the Under-21s.

"They can still play for the Under-21s and they're playing in a match to get their team to the European Championships and it's derailed on the afternoon of it.

"They are perfectly fine. Under UK law, they are fine to continue playing with distances and so forth.

“It's just obviously different medical rules in Ireland over distances, and that's something that's hard to believe, really.

"But it's just something that we're going to have to accept."

Kenny refused to criticise the arrangements which meant the two players came within two metres of the staff member.

He said: "Listen, we have a lot of great staff here, there are a lot of good people here and I think this is a situation that is unprecedented, for sure. It's something that we just have to contend with.

"Without doubt, everyone can learn, but it's an unfortunate situation and one that we have to live with."

Kenny gave a little more indication as to what went on behind the scenes ahead of Connolly's omission.

He said: "What happens in-house should stay in-house, but certainly realistically, it was a non-essential football member and that's something that we have to live with.

"There's no doubt that it was hugely disappointing, hugely disappointing. We're very, very disappointed about that.

"Aaron was selected in the team and Adam would have been a good attacking option for us as well, and to find out on the matchday, and then a bit of a saga because the possibility existed of an appeal and so forth in the situation, it wasn't good preparation on the matchday because we were having discussions about it and impact of it rather than the match itself.

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"But listen, there's nothing we can do about it. The players were excellent on the night. There were no guarantees if we had the two players."

Asked about a suggestion Connolly and Idah were in the wrong seats on the plane, Kenny replied: "That seems to be the case. I wouldn’t have been aware of that because I was at the front of the plane.

“I'm not going into the operations of flight seating at the moment, I'm not getting into that conversation because I don't think that would be right.”