Danes taken aback as football breaks out at Aviva

Blown about by erratic and deceptive winds of change in Abbotstown and a no-nonsense full force gale in Gibraltar, Irish football was in urgent need of some shelter from the storm at the Aviva on Tuesday night.

So a doff of the hat to Mick McCarthy and his team for providing not just that but also grounds for believing that there might be sunnier days to come — at least on the pitch — with a win over Georgia which, in contrast to the scrambled victory by the same score last Saturday, came with the hugely welcome bonus of a performance that was frequently and refreshingly easy on the eye.