McCarthy: Winning is not far off utopia. But winning and playing well is better

After the Rock, it’s time for Ireland to roll. Mick McCarthy might not welcome the notion that, just 90 minutes into his new reign, the pressure is already intensifying but, even allowing for the extent to which the conditions in Gibraltar on Saturday made for something of a lottery of the game at times, Ireland’s underwhelming performance en route to scrambling the narrowest of victories against the Group D minnows, didn’t exactly inspire confidence that a corner has been turned in the fortunes of the Irish team.

The hope must be then that the peculiar circumstances of that contest made for something of a false start, at least in terms of the level of the away team’s performance, and this evening on home soil — the real stuff, to boot — and with the elements more inclined to play ball, the second game of the second coming will provide something more like convincing evidence of progression as well as another victory to add to the three points which were so hard-earned and, in the end, so very welcome in Gibraltar.