Ireland go back to future

The Ireland squad flew out of Dublin to painfully familiar territory yesterday for their first test on the road under new management.

The stakes are clearly nowhere near as high as they were when they made the trip to Poznan in the summer of 2012 but, going into tomorrow night’s friendly against Poland, there is still the burden of expectation which comes with the hope that Friday’s convincing win over was not a false dawn.

What’s certain is that the Poles on their home turf will provide a much sterner test of the new Ireland’s credentials than did the compliant Latvians.