Brighton Rock comes of age

Looking down half the length of the pitch towards the Irish penalty area, it was like watching film of the sun coming up over the mountains — on fast repeat.

Especially in that last 20 minutes, when Wales were reduced to pumping a barrage of high balls into the crowded box, Shane Duffy, you might say, rose to the occasion, time and time again.

Wales versus Ireland in the Cardiff City Stadium on Monday was the night the Brighton Rock underlined his credentials as a Green Giant. If Ireland’s smash and grab victory was not quite the stuff of the ‘Miracle Of Moscow’ — that remarkable away day when the Irish really should have been beaten out of sight — it was nonetheless the setting for the kind of command performance by the Derryman which recalled Richard Dunne in his prime.