Ireland have upped their game and will try their utmost to cross the line

ROY KEANE was mocked by many when he said Ireland could win soccer’s 2002 World Cup.

But they came to realise that Keane might have been onto something as soon as they saw the standard of the teams in the competition he had left behind to return to England. Not that we would have won it, but that Irish side would have gone much further in the competition had it prepared properly and had the self-belief which comes from that.

You need self-belief and confidence in top-class sport if you are to win the matches that count but professional athletes are experienced enough to know that only comes from proper preparation. “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” was Keane’s oft-quoted maxim from the time. How right he was.