Sport

Robbie Brady is desperate to prolong the Euro 2016 party

The Republic of Ireland's Robbie Brady during a training session &nbsp;at the Stade de Montbauron in Versailles on Wednesday<br />Picture by AP&nbsp;
The Republic of Ireland's Robbie Brady during a training session  at the Stade de Montbauron in Versailles on Wednesday
Picture by AP 
The Republic of Ireland's Robbie Brady during a training session  at the Stade de Montbauron in Versailles on Wednesday
Picture by AP 

ROBBIE BRADY admits he’d have loved to have been in the middle of fans having the craic in Paris on Monday.

But the Norwich City star says he’s “one of the lucky ones” who get to play the games and he wants to make the country happy in France this summer: “The party… When you see stuff like that, you want to be right in the middle of it,” said the Dubliner.

“But we’re the ones, we’re the lucky ones who get to go out and perform and it’s up to us to make everyone proud and make everyone happy.”

Nothing will make Ireland fans happier than a win against Belgium in Bordeaux on Saturday. The Belgians have a wealth of attacking talent at their disposal, but Brady says the Republic have to keep them on the back foot and keep the ball when they have it.

“That's part of tournament football - we can't just set out to stop them, although we'll be well drilled in trying to do that,” he said.

“They have some dangerous players and people who can hurt us. Hopefully, we'll keep them quiet and show them what we're about. There's nothing to fear, but they've got some fantastic players. We can't have any fear going into these games. We've got players that can hurt teams, like we showed the other night. Hopefully, we can show what we're about as well and try and shut out what they've got. They're all very good players and can be a handful at any minute of the game, so there'll be a close eye kept on every single one of them and, hopefully, we can shut them out.”

Watch Derry men James McClean and Shane Duffy in training on Wednesday:

The Republic played with fluency and flair in their opener against Sweden, but weren’t able to put the ball in the back of the net more than once: “We did get done in the end with an unlucky goal, but I don’t think it was just a question of us scoring and sitting back,” said Brady.

“It was a lot to do with the way they changed the system. We had to regroup after conceding the goal and show cool heads to see the game out and try and get a goal ourselves again.”

Goal!

The Manchester United academy product went close to scoring himself in the first-half against Sweden. He says Ireland’s players have another big performance in them: "Definitely and we have to if we want to have any ambitions of getting out of this group.

“We have to think like that. The lads are buzzing already. We really enjoyed the atmosphere and the game the other night. We were disappointed not to get the win, but we are willing to go again and we are ready for Belgium.”

It is hard to strike the balance between attack and defence, as Northern Ireland found out to their cost in their opener against Poland. The North set their stall out to play defensively and couldn’t get back into the game after they fell behind.

“It is difficult,” said Brady.

“It is such a big stage, but we have been working hard and we got our preparations right and we have been doing everything we can to go into each game with the mindset that we can go and win them. That’s what we’re here to do and we managed to get a good balance in the first game. We were unlucky not to win it.

“We do like to play football as well. Some Ireland teams in the past might have had a different approach, but we have some lads in at the minute that are really good footballers. We like to get the ball down and play, but it is about finding the balance and we managed to do that in the first game and, hopefully, we can do that for the second.”