However, despite beating Randolph, the Serbia captain’s shot couldn’t beat Coleman, who hooked it away off the line.
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Serbia also have a midfield danger man of their own.
“Murphy comes up with a great, great goal”, Ireland manager O’Neill told the BBC after the Group D World Cup Qualifier ended in a draw.
O’Neill fully expects Serbia to win more important games in Belgrade and push for qualification to the 2018 World Cup finals in Russian Federation: “I think if the crowd decide to get behind the team and support them in droves – which I’ve seen before here – then I think it will be hard for the other teams”. The 24-year-old is probably Ireland’s best technical player, able to find space when under pressure, but his game has lacked goals at both club and worldwide level.
Finally, with 54 minutes on the clock, the home side brilliantly forged a genuine opening and forced a first save from Michael McGovern.
Extratime Man of the Match: Daryl Murphy (Republic of Ireland). Ireland were drawn in a group with Italy, Belgium and Sweden at Euro 2016, and after their historic 1-0 win over the Italians, they progressed out of the group. Hendrick drills home from the edge of the area after Mitrovic is unable to convincingly clear O’Shea’s cross from the right following Brady’s free-kick.
The game should have been all over with 18 minutes remaining, but substitute Andrija Pavlovic contrived to hit the bar from point-blank distance after Randolph had saved Filip Mladenovic’s effort, and the visitors thought they were level within seconds when Walters headed Hendrick’s cross past Rajkovic, only for an offside flag to ruin his celebrations.
Despite having a hand in both Ireland goals, Robbie Brady was unconvincing in midfield.
But once the goals started for the hosts, they came thick and fast with their equaliser coming four minutes later as Ivanovic found Tadic in the middle of the box and the Saints winger looped the ball over the head of O’Shea to find Kostic who tapped home.
After unsuccessful performance in qualifying, Serbia held a series of friendly matches, which lost to the Czech Republic 4: 1 Poland 1: 0, and also defeated Estonia 0: 1 Cyprus 2: 1, Israel 3: 1 and shared the points with Russian Federation 1:1. Daryl Murphy thumps home Brady’s corner to level it up on the night. “We’re a very good team when we don’t have the ball but we have to improve a lot when we do have it”.
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Seamus Coleman recovered in time from an ankle injury to lead his country in their first qualifier for the 2018 World Cup.
