Irish pride holds Three Lions in check

England 1 Republic of Ireland 1

In truth, the new generation of the boys in green were hanging on a bit at the end but the result was deserved if only to reward Seamus Coleman for a man of the match performance and Shane Long for scoring one of the best Irish goals we’ve seen in recent times.

So a very familiar scoreline at the end but then, even though there had been an interruption of 18 years since the two countries had last met on a football pitch there was the usual familiar feel to this latest Anglo-Irish disagreement right from the off, with all the players well known to the majority of 80,000 watching in the stadium and the millions looking in on TV.