Aiden gets ovation from team-mates

Two-goal hero Aiden McGeady was greeted by an ovation from his team-mates when he returned to the Irish dressing room last night.

“I’d been doing a few interviews outside while the manager was talking to the team about the game,” he said afterwards. “I was a bit awkward when it happened, I didn’t know how to react really. It was nice.”

Reflecting on his goals, he said: “There was a bit of luck involved with the first one. Jonny did well with a flick-on, Robbie stepped over. James showed great composure and slipped me in.

“The second goal was all about concentrating on my touch. I had my back to the goal, I just thought I’d try something. It came off for me. It doesn’t happen very often for me but thankfully it went in.

“I’m off to a great start, so is the team and hopefully I can build on it.

“I try not to think about it because it took so long before I scored my first goal. I was going into every game thinking ‘I need to score, I need to score’. It’s funny. When you don’t think about it, it just happens. Obviously I want to score more. I’ve nearly doubled my goal tally for Ireland tonight. I know I need to score more, especially for Ireland. It’s not too bad at club level. With Ireland I need to push on.”

How much has Martin O’Neill helped to boost his self-belief? “Maybe sub-consciously there’s a little bit of belief there. He can have these off-hand remarks , like with the ability I have, if I concentrated more or didn’t make mistakes, I could be up there with other players in Europe. Maybe he’s just saying it but it can give you belief. He’s always been like that, even at Celtic.

“I’m happy within myself. Everyone would like to have a better career. If my caerer finished now, I could look back happily on it. But you always want to do better.”