ONE AT A TIME FOR MURPH

DARYL MURPHY is adamant the Republic of Ireland have not allowed themselves to think about the World Cup showdown with Wales until now.

Heading into Friday night’s penultimate Group D qualifier against Moldova, Murphy and his team-mates knew their dreams would be over before they even touched down in Cardiff if they did not emerge with three points.

But having played the pivotal role in a 2-0 victory by scoring both goals, the Nottingham Forest striker (above) is now relishing a game which could yet see either side qualify automatically for next summer’s finals in Russia, or both miss out altogether.

When it was put to him that tomorrow’s clash at the Cardiff City Stadium is a massive occasion, Murphy said: “Of course it is, we always knew that.

“We needed to take care of business on Friday night. We’ve done that, so now we can look forward to it.

“It was plain and simple what we needed to do – we needed to win. Regardless of the performance that was put in, the result was all that mattered.

“You can only play what’s in front of you, we couldn’t be thinking about any other game. But now we can turn our attention to the next one.”