Nothing succeeds quite like success

NOW this is the kind of Eurozone contagion we can all handle.

As the final whistle blew in the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday night, it was as if someone flicked a switch and, in an instant, changed the national mood from gloom to joy. After the game, in the heaving Berkeley Court, there seemed to be a smile on every face, with one of the biggest grins belonging to the man who’d put the ball in the English met all those years ago.

“At long last,” said Ray Houghton, “because if you’d told me in 1988 that it would be another 24 years before we’d qualify for the Euro finals again, I’d have sent for the men in white coats. I mean, when you think of the players we had then...”