ROBBIE Brady described captaining the Republic of Ireland for the first time as a 'dream' but the Burnley winger was disappointed that the night ended in defeat.

Brady played as a wing-back for Martin O'Neill's side in an Aviva Stadium friendly with Iceland and he was named man of the match as Ireland fell to a 1-0 defeat.

The £13million man led Ireland out in the absence of regular captain Seamus Coleman, who broke his leg in the World Cup qualifier with Wales in Dublin on Friday night.

The 25-year-old said it had been a proud moment but in an interview with the host broadcaster eirSport after the game he couldn't hide his disappointment as he collected the man of the match award.

"I enjoyed it," Brady said of taking the captain's armband. "It's a dream for me to captain my country but it's disappointing in the circumstances with the injury (to Coleman).

"It's a proud moment for me but I'm just disappointed we couldn't get the win."

Asked about the Hoerdur Magnusson free-kick that produced the only goal of the game, Brady added: "It's very disappointing to concede a set-piece like that to define the game. It's not really good enough but we'll move on from this. The lads are all disappointed but we'll look forward to the game in the summer now.

"It wasn't good enough first half, there was a flatness to us in the first half but I thought we were a lot better second half but we didn't manage to break them down to get the goal we needed."