Ireland got out of jail last night but that won’t happen very often

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The man who clinched a famous victory in Yerevan at the start of the campaign beat Bazunu and a wave of disbelief fell over Lansdowne Road and the 41,718 attendance.

Ireland simply needed to score again and Nathan Collins, who has been superb in this campaign, had a header saved before Hourihane blasted over.

Remarkably, Armenia almost took the lead when Khoren Bayramyan shot wide.

Panic stations, but out of the chaos came O’Shea’s close-range effort and, eventually, that penalty decision.

Brady, back in the fold after a tough 18 months away, was the coolest man in Dublin 4 as he slotted home.

It was a moment that amounted to a reprieve for Ireland.

IRELAND have a bad habit of switching off and losing concentration at vital points in games.

This was a game

Stephen Kenny’s men cruising for most of it.

Then a bit of sloppiness — not once, but twice — opened the door for Armenia.

I think the substitution of Jayson Molumby was a factor in what happened.

He’d picked up a yellow card and had another foul that could have been yellow — so Kenny had to bring him off.

Room

In came Conor Hourihane, and that’s not a like-for-like replacement.

The midfield wasn’t as balanced then, Armenia got more where were room there, and then Hourihane made a bad mistake for the second goal.

It’s something that happens in football.You can be cruising and comfortable and, in the space of a couple of minutes, the game has been turned on its head. A draw would have made life very tricky for Kenny.

His critics would have become more vocal, and they’d have got more support.

He’ll still get some flak but Ireland have avoided relegation — and that’s the main thing.

The other big positive is the emergence of Michael Obafemi as a real star. I’m convinced Gavin Bazunu and Nathan Collins will reach the top level, Obafemi is one to watch too. Overall, Ireland need to learn the lesson. Never switch off, never give opponents a chink of light when you’re on top.

That’s when you need leaders on the pitch who will drive you on to victory.

There is one marked difference between club and international football.

Setpieces, and making them count, is far more important with the latter.

In club football, setpieces lead to roughly 30 per cent of goals.

Figure

In international football, that figure rises to 40 per cent. In some recent tournaments, it has been even higher.

You aren’t going anywhere with a national team if you don’t get this right.

So this has been a decent international break for Ireland when you consider John Egan scored against both Scotland and Armenia from corner-kicks.

This was a game that Ireland were always going to win — and that was because of the opposition. Sure, Armenia won against Kenny’s men inYerevan, but they have fallen apart since then.

Following their defeat to Ukraine at the weekend, there was an extraordinary stand-off after the game between Armenia journalists and manager Joaquín Camino.

The Spaniard will step down from the post in November but that wasn’t good enough for the hack pack.

They demanded that he resign on the spot. Camino refused to do so, which led to the reporters walking out en masse from the press conference.

Now I had a few run-ins with Ireland managers over the years but I’ve never come across anything like that before.