Shane Duffy: ‘We’re not getting over excited about beating Gibraltar’

“We’re at home and we know that we can turn up,” said Shane Duffy, expressing confidence that Ireland can put their scare in Gibraltar behind them and produce what, it hardly needs saying, will need to be a far better performance against tricky customers Georgia in Dublin tomorrow night.

Summing up his feelings about how his team had escaped the Rock by the skin of their teeth, the Brighton defender stated the obvious when he said, “we’re not getting over excited about beating Gibraltar.”

But, under the circumstances, he did take satisfaction in getting those first three European Championship points on the board.

“In these conditions, it was quite difficult,” he said. “It certainly wasn’t very enjoyable to play in. It was tough.

“The scoreline could have been a lot different if we’d taken our chances. We had four or five and if we’d taken them it could have been a different kind of result. They had a good chance too. We knew they’d have a chance so we had to be organised and prepared. Darren (Randolph) dealt with it very well, but that’s what he’s been great at for a long time for us.”

Duffy compared what, prior to kick off, had the look of a skewed match-up to an “FA Cup game where it’s underdogs against a bigger side and we were the bigger side. But that’s football, and we’ve all been involved in games like that, and they’re always very tricky.

“On paper, you think you should go out and blitz them and if we’d got an early goal then it might have been a bit different.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s test in Dublin, he said: “There is a lot to improve on for us and we know that we can. In the bigger games it comes to you more naturally and maybe you’re more focused because of it. But I’d like to think that we were all quite focused anyway and eager to impress the new manager.”

Speaking of whom, Duffy was asked who he found the experience of working under Mick McCarthy for the first time.

“It’s been great,” he said. “Everyone has really, really enjoyed it. We all had good times under Martin (O’Neill) and we were successful under him, too. I enjoyed it under Martin as well.

“We didn’t get the results we wanted towards the end, which made it a little bit worse, but it was quite relaxed under Martin and I enjoyed those years.

“When you get a new manager you get a new bounce off it and everyone feels excited and eager. I wouldn’t say it’s more relaxed, just that everyone is excited because it’s a fresh start for everyone and maybe not the same thing.”