Seamus Coleman will always have Lille

As we know only too well, Seamus Coleman won’t be on the pitch in the Aviva on Sunday but if his replacement Cyrus Christie and the rest of the Irish players can channel some of the spirit Captain Coleman’s men showed on a famous night in Lille last summer, Austria in the World Cup qualifiers will find themselves up against what Italy were forced to confront in the finals of the European Championships.

And that is the boys in green firmly in the zone.

“It’s a very easy phrase but a difficult phrase to explain,” says Coleman. “If you’re in the zone and 10 other people aren’t, then it doesn’t matter — it’s a team game. But that night we knew we needed a result and you could just feel the atmosphere in the changing room against Italy. You just felt this was going to be our night, a big night for us, Irish players and Irish fans. You just felt that something was going to happen.