McCarthy still has Georgia on his mind for clash with Danes

Ireland being paired once again with Denmark and Georgia in the Euro 2020 draw in Dublin in December might have induced an unwelcome sense of déjà vu but it also made Group D into something akin to a useful laboratory experiment, offering a convenient then-and-now contrast to help us better determine the state of the Irish game in 2019.

The result of the March test against the Georgians in Dublin produced a clear positive, the narrowness of the win on the scoreboard belying an often vibrant performance which, in the warmth of the appreciation it drew from the Aviva crowd — the tennis ball protest notwithstanding — suggested that the long-suffering faithful were much more taken with the cut of this Irish team’s jib than they were with what they had witnessed the last few times the boys in green came up against those perennial tricky customers.