Ireland ready to get down to business

A BIBLICAL cloudburst drenched the national stadium here in Skopje yesterday afternoon, but there were no comparable dramatics indoors at the arena as Giovanni Trapattoni and Robbie Keane faced the mics and cameras for Ireland’s eve-of-match press conference.

The mood, just ahead of the team’s training session in this evening’s venue, was business-like.

But one suspects the Irish attitude will need to be something rather more than that when the real business gets going here tonight at 8.30pm Irish time.