Soccer: World Cup team returns to Dublin

Hundreds of fans waited through the night to greet Ireland’s World Cup heroes as they landed just before dawn at Dublin Airport following a seven-hour fight from their play-off triumph in Tehran.

And Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given was the number one target of the back-slappers who filled the arrivals hall after he repeated his heroics of the first leg last Saturday by again defying Iran’s strikers to cement Ireland’s precious place in the Japan-Korea finals next summer.