– Paul Dollery reports from Cardiff
WHEN A SEAGULL emptied the contents of its arse onto my jacket outside the Cardiff City Stadium, perhaps I should have known that it was going to be Ireland’s night.
The view of the pitch from the front row of the press box was slightly obscured by the section of Ireland supporters on their feet in front of us.
“We’ll be standing for the entire game, lads. There’s no way I’m sitting down for this one,” a lad in a tricolour mohawk wig assured us.
He was true to his word. With about 10 minutes of football played, the stewards at the home of Cardiff City Football Club finally relented and the Green Army’s seats went unused for the duration of the final Group D qualifier.
Once again they backed their team without wilting. It’s just what they do. But they met their match last night in the Welsh, whose stirring rendition of their national anthem, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land Of My Fathers), left your hair standing on end.
Even after James McClean’s 57th-minute strike put the visitors in the ascendancy, the 30,000 Welsh supporters in the ground continued their attempts to inspire Chris Coleman’s players with their impressively vociferous encouragement.
At full-time, they reacted to their team’s defeat with shock more than disappointment. Having been one of the four best teams at last year’s European Championship, the possibility that their hopes of reaching a first World Cup in 60 years could be dashed by a team like Ireland had scarcely been countenanced in Wales.
As they played host to Ireland’s celebrations, the bars around the Welsh capital surely haven’t enjoyed a more lucrative Monday night.
At the ground after the game, I bumped into a former GAA clubmate and a fellow alumni at Beaumont Boys’ National School. Nowadays he happens to be the captain of the senior Ireland football team — but only temporarily, as he was keen to point out with a nod to injured skipper Seamus Coleman.
“It’s a huge honour to have the armband but Seamus Coleman is our captain, I’m just filling in,” said David Meyler.
Ireland’s win had capped a satisfying couple of days for Meyler. Twenty-four hours earlier, the GAA club he once represented with distinction reached their first Cork senior hurling championship final in 14 years.
If professional football hadn’t worked out for the 28-year-old Hull City midfielder, it’s likely that he’d now be preparing for a county final instead of a World Cup play-off — the first leg of which he’ll unfortunately be absent for after picking up a yellow card last night.
Eager to discuss Blackrock’s one-point victory over Na Piarsaigh instead of his own major sporting achievement just moments earlier, Meyler — whose father John may be Cork’s next senior hurling manager — had been following the online updates from Paírc Uí Chaoimh at Ireland’s team hotel on Sunday afternoon.
“I’m over the moon for everyone involved with the club,” he said. “Blackrock have been down for a while but that’s sport. When I was a young fella, hurlers like Wayne Sherlock, Fergal Ryan and the Brownes [Alan and John] were the people I looked up to. It’s great to see them back at the top again. I was delighted with the result.”
He was delighted too with Ireland’s result, which was greeted with the kind of euphoria which is normally reserved for qualification for a major tournament. The 1-0 win in Wales represented an enormous step in the right direction, but Martin O’Neill’s side aren’t preparing for Russia just yet.
Meyler insisted: “We can’t get too carried away because we’ve got to go now and obviously win the play-off against whoever it is. We’ve got one massive step to go.”
When it comes to the result of a match at this level of international football, there’s often a reluctance to credit an intangible thing such as character as a key factor.
But sometimes, like last night, it stares you straight in the face. It was personified by Shane Duffy and Ciaran Clark conducting themselves like a pair of burly bodyguards blocking the Welsh from getting up close and personal with Darren Randolph.
Daryl Murphy too. On Friday night he admitted to being “absolutely knackered” after playing 79 minutes against Moldova. Last night he lasted 90 significantly more taxing minutes in Cardiff and claimed he felt much fresher than he did when leaving the Aviva Stadium pitch three days ago. The will to win provided sufficient fuel when the tank threatened to run dry.
“We come alive on the big occasions, we always have. When we know we’re up against it, I don’t know what it is about us — just our character, the want to win and the hunger I think,” Murphy told us afterwards.
“We play for each other, there’s no individuals on this team. We all fight for each other.”
Character won’t always be enough for this Ireland team to succeed, but when it forms the bedrock of occasions like last night’s, would Ireland fans want to swap it for any other attribute?
While my jacket may be stained by bird shit today, if that’s the kind of luck that’s needed to get the Boys in Green to Russia, I’d gladly have wiped the arse of every seagull in Cardiff.
Originally published at 13.24
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