HOURIHANE CONFIDENT OF NAILING DOWN SPOT
CONOR HOURIHANE felt he took his chance to impress new Ireland manager Stephen Kenny on Saturday.
The Cork man, above, was preferred to Aston Villa team-mate Glenn Whelan, inset, for a starting berth against Gibraltar and fared much better than the first game of the last campaign against Wales.
“I was delighted to get the nod from Mick ahead of three or four others,” he said after the 1-0 victory and ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Georgia to
Aviva Stadium.
“I feel like I’ve had a good season for Villa because I’ve been playing week in week out for a while now.
“With it being a fresh start under the new manager we weren’t sure how he was going to go, so I was delighted to be picked and thrilled to be part of getting three points.
“I felt like I had to take my chance and I feel as though I did alright.”
The 28-year-old didn’t mind that Saturday’s victory won’t feature in the all-time highs of Irish football.
Negotiating an artificial surface in strong winds led to forced route one tactics on occasions.
“It was a difficult night DARREN RANDOLPH endured a new and unusual experience as Ireland scrapped their way to a 1-0 Euro 2020 qualifier victory in Gibraltar.
The Middlesbrough goalkeeper not only had to cope with a plastic pitch and a strong swirling wind, but at one point had to try to maintain concentration as an aeroplane took off from the runway just yards behind his goal.
Asked afterwards how many times he had experienced that before, he said with a smile: “Not many. I can’t remember with the pitch and the wind – but credit to Gibraltar for playing so well,” he added.
“I’m not sure whether the TV will have done that any justice, but the ball was swirling around, that’s for sure. It wasn’t easy so we have to be delighted with getting a win.
“The only way you’ll build confidence and build a bit of momentum is by winning games of football and hopefully by coming here and getting three points will be the start of that. It’s a foundation for us.
“You have to start from somewhere and a win is a win. Now we look to Tuesday.”
Tomorrow will be a different proposition, with Georgia superior in class.
“It be a lot tougher than Gibraltar,” said Hourihane. “Georgia are a decent side, so we’ll have to play a little bit better.
“The first week working with the new manager and his staff has been like a breath of fresh air.
“Everyone is on a new playing field and excited about the campaign ahead. Hopefully, this is just a little starting block for us and we’ll be ready for Tuesday night.” any aeroplanes so close. I didn’t look round. I didn’t need to look. The noise was enough.”
Ireland will head into tomorrow night’s clash with Georgia knowing they will need to be significantly better, but Randolph said: “We came out to get the win and that’s what we did. People can say what they want, but it’s easy to say from the couch or looking on.
“We wanted to come here and get the win, which we did. It won’t matter come the end of the group when we qualify.”