Everyone needs to step up to the mark, warns Martin O’Neill

In the immediate aftermath of a 1-0 win over Georgia which could so every easily have been a draw or worse for Ireland, Martin O’Neill described his team’s first-half performance as “very ordinary.” 

All the indications are that the descriptive language he used in the dressing room in the Aviva at half-time on Thursday was rather more robust, what match-winner Seamus Coleman later termed “a rollicking” from the Ireland manager getting something more like the desired response in the second half.

A win and a draw from home and away games might be textbook stuff for the start of a World Cup qualifying campaign but the more painful detail behind Ireland’s satisfactory place on the table – which currently sees them on four points with Wales, Serbia and Austria – means O’Neill’s team can’t afford any complacency in Chisinau tomorrow night, even if they are taking on a Moldovan side which, with no points, no goals scored and seven conceded in two games, look like they’re already shaping up to be the Group D whipping boys.