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Mop-up

Talking points: Gibson's magic salvages reputation of Nations Cup

It wasn’t vintage football. In fact, at times it was hardly entertaining. We bring you a round-up of the night’s main talking points so that you don’t have to sit through the highlights.

IF YOU MISSED tonight’s Nations Cup opener, you shouldn’t be too disappointed. It really wasn’t great. Just in case you’re still eager to find out what happened, here are the main things that the good folk in the office will probably be discussing in the morning.

A tale of two halves

I’m pretty certain that the word “woegeous”* was coined with the inaction of tonight’s first-half in mind. Really, I can’t remember anything of note actually happening. Duff hit the post with a half-cross half-shot that he didn’t really mean. That was about it.

Realising that Wales definitely weren’t going to take the game to them, Ireland’s performance was a whole lot better in the second half. Duff and Walters had a few half-chances before Manchester United’s Darron Gibson opened the scoring with a 20-yard belter shortly before the hour mark.

After that, there was only ever going to be one winner. Walters took advantage of some slack defending by the Welsh to set up man of the match Damien Duff for Ireland’s second, with Fahey putting the icing on the cake with a sweetly-struck free-kick with ten minutes to go.

Debutant watch

Ciaran Clark didn’t have a massive amount to do at the back, though he did nearly manage to open the scoring towards the end of the first-half when his looping header drifted just wide.

Fellow debutant Seamus Coleman put in a decent shift out on the wing as well, offering a little bit of much-needed creativity going forward before he was substituted shortly after half-time.

Not to be left out, Stoke’s Marc Wilson also got on for a ten-minute run-out in his first appearance for the boys in green.

Goal of the night

Step forward, Darron Gibson. If you’re going to open your international goal-scoring account, you might as well do it in style.

Man of the match

Kevin Doyle worked hard for the 45 minutes he was on the pitch, and Gibson will undoubtedly get the plaudits in the morning for his cracking strike. For me, however, Damien Duff was easily the best player on the pitch tonight.

He was at the heart of pretty much every Irish move going forward and created a few half-chances before finally getting on the scoresheet in the 66th minute.

Inspired sub of the night

On any other night, Keith Fahey’s free-kick to put Ireland 3-0 up would have been the game’s highlight. Not tonight unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth a second look.

Bizarre rule of the night

The decision to allow six substitutions for each team. Where did they come up with that one from? And, more importantly, when did they come up with it? It seemed to catch pretty much everybody off guard and certainly provided a nice ammo boost for those who keep telling us that the Nations Cup is just another series of friendlies.

Losers of the night

The Carling Nations Cup organisers. Admittedly, it could have been an awful lot worse for them if the game hadn’t taken on a little bit of life in the second half. Nonetheless, they won’t be pleased with the amount of empty seats on show in the Aviva this evening with just under 21,000 present for the tournament opener.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how the figures from tomorrow night’s Scotland-Northern Ireland clash compare, even at a reduced ticket price of just €20.

Meanwhile, over in the Welsh corner

It wasn’t the greatest first game in charge for new Welsh boss Gary Speed. He’ll probably take some consolation in the fact that his team managed to keep in touch for an hour despite never really impressing. If he’s any sense though, he’ll make sure that Chris Gunther never again tries to a shepherd a ball out of play as he did in the build-up to Ireland’s second.

Tweet of the night

A title which neither Ireland nor Wales wanted on the evidence of tonight’s first-half performances.

* Disclaimer: may not actually be a word.