O’Neill: We need full points against Scots

Timing is everything, in football as well as life in general, so Shane Long’s injury-time equaliser last night ensured that a stalemate that would likely have been viewed with disillusionment prior to kick-off was suddenly being wielded as a lightning rod for contests to come. 

Ireland are imperilled to an uncomfortably worrying degree on the back of last night’s draw and the loss in Scotland late last year and yet the talk after ninety minutes in Ballsbridge was of the fighting variety, on social media in particular, as the fans still filtered out of the Aviva Stadium.

Martin O’Neill was making upbeat noises, too.