THIS was a crazy, crazy night in Cardiff. The Republic of Ireland are residents of the play-offs at this stage and had no intention of being evicted by their Celtic neighbours Wales.
A stunning 57th minute strike from James McClean – the team’s best player in this qualification campaign – gave the Irish the win they desperately needed to progress to next month’s World Cup play-offs.
So you're saying there's a chance pic.twitter.com/A0oklIWcAm — Jonathan walters (@JonWalters19) October 9, 2017
When the dust settles on this wonderfully anarchic night in the Welsh capital perhaps we’ll wonder how Martin O’Neill did it.
For it was a treacherous road the Republic travelled in 2017 – but their World Cup dream in Russia is still alive.
After five minutes of agonising stoppage-time O’Neill and his assistant Roy Keane embraced. Neither man wanted to let go.
It was Lille all over again.
The Republic of Ireland players broke their opponents’ will. It was that simple.
For 90-plus minutes, the Irish players were brilliant without the ball.
They can happily exist on 30 per cent possession. In fact, it suits them.
Don’t give them the ball because they don’t particularly want it.
What they did last night was build a wall at the edge of their own box and Wales simply ran out of ideas as to how to break them down.
If the Welsh ran up one cul-de-sac in a rocking Cardiff City Stadium last night they ran up a thousand.
There were bravehearts all over the field last night – and they were wearing green and white. Take a bow Shane Duffy.
He produced his best ever game in his fledgling international career. Harry Arter finally understood O’Neill’s gameplan.
He ran all night until he could no longer move. Daryl Murphy deserves a medal for the amount of lost causes he chased, while McClean roared his way through this tense struggle like his life depended on the outcome.
And few players would have kept chasing the ball the way in which Hendrick did that ultimately led to the goal that sent the Irish into the play-offs. And yet, all the smart money was going on Wales to go through prior to the game.
The Republic’s pre-match plans were hampered by the news yesterday morning that Shane Long was ruled out through injury.
Whether the Southampton striker would have held onto his place after missing a hat-trick of chances against Moldova last Friday is a moot point.
Regardless, Arter was probably the beneficiary of Long’s 11th hour withdrawal and was drafted into Ireland’s starting XI in the hope of making up for his disappointing display in Tbilisi last month which cost him his place for the Serbia and Moldova games.
As expected, Wes Hoolahan was held in reserve despite his fine midfield display three nights earlier in Dublin, while two-goal hero Murphy spearheaded the Irish attack.
The Welsh were missing the injured Gareth Bale, the man responsible for more than 75 per cent of his side’s goals in qualifying for Euro 2016. Wales, who had lost just one competitive game in their last 21 outings heading into last night’s showdown, made just one change to the side that came away with a vital 1-0 win in Georgia last Friday.
Hal Robson-Kanu took over from Sam Vokes in attack while Derby’s young gun and goal hero in Tbilisi Tom Lawrence kept his place ahead of Liverpool teenager Ben Woodburn.
Wales were still seeking to end their 60-year absence from the World Cup finals, the Irish a mere 16 years. As expected, the home side made all the early running, particularly midfield trio of Joe Allen, Joe Ledley and Aaron Ramsey who tried to pass their way through Ireland’s heavily fortified midfield.
They threatened at times and pulled their opponents out oftheir designated zones but, apart from Ramsey’s rasping drive on eight minutes that was tipped over the crossbar by Darren Randolph, the visitors were decidedly comfortable with anything their hosts threw at them.
