DARREN KEEPING CALM FOR DRAW

IRELAND’S Mr Cool insists he won’t stress over next month’s World Cup play-off opponents.

Darren Randolph is not a man who works himself into a tizzy, taking everything in his stride.

He kept his wits about him at Cardiff City Stadium on Monday to help stifle Wales and pulled off a stunning save to deny Hal Robson-kanu (below).

But the Middlesbrough goalkeeper feels there is no point stressing over which team

Ireland face in their November showdown.

“We’re not seeded so it’s going to be a tough draw no matter what,” he said. “I’ll just sit back and see who we get and we go again next month. The World Cup is the biggest there is, so the dream is to play there. I’m just happy we got through.

“We had a great start to the group and it turned into a bit of a struggle towards the end and we needed to rely on other teams to do us a favour.”

As an unseeded team in Tuesday’s draw in Zurich, Ireland will be at home in the first-leg and away in the second. But that could actually work in this team’s favour as Ireland have reserved all their best form for their travels in this campaign.

The Bray man added: “When you’re the away team, the pressure is not on you to go and make something happen.

“We did a lot of defending in Cardiff, we held on and nicked a goal and hung on.

“So it might suit us not being the possession team. I’m not complaining if we keep getting results and winning.

“Once you keep things tight and take a chance when you get it, you’re always going to be a threat to big teams. So I don’t think we have anything to fear – it’s 180 minutes and see how we do.”

And Randolph also hailed talisman James Mcclean for his fourth goal of the campaign.

Randolph said: “He works incredibly hard, and he deserved that on Monday. The whole team put in an incredible shift.”