O’Neill, who has enjoyed some great successes both as a player and a manager, labelled the victory as one of the finest of his career and joked that a last-16 tie with the French would be “easy”.
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Needing a win to qualify from Group E, Ireland looked to be running out of ideas against group winners Italy, but Brady popped up with five minutes to go, heading home a Wes Hoolahan cross.
“I think it affected us in the end, with the two goals, they had a little bit more going forward”.
“It will be a complicated game, we watched the last minutes of their game against Portugal, Hungary leave 200 percent on the field”, said Belgium skipper Eden Hazard who was awarded man-of-the-match.
“But we knew that if we were going to get out of the group we were going to play top teams and we’re playing the hosts”. Italy’s only first-half attempt came two minutes before halftime when Ciro Immobile’s long-range curler went wide. “There was real disappointment not to be given the penalty, but we had to get over it. It will be a talking point obviously, but I don’t think it will concern us when we play the game”. “Perhaps we were punished when we were on top but congratulations to Ireland because they really wanted to go through and were rewarded”.
The proudest fan of them all has to be Robbie’s other half Kerrie, as the sports star was filmed running over to his long-term love to celebrate his goal. Brady said: “We will just have to prepare as hard as we can because they will be a tough outfit but if we click on the night we will give them a difficult game”. Hendrick sent a 20-meter shot just wide and Daryl Murphy saw his header off a corner from Robbie Brady saved by goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu.
“It’s what dreams are made of”.
The match victor struggled for words at the final whistle, describing it as the best feeling in the world.
“But we did, he put in a lovely ball and Brady’s gone in as bravely as anything”.
“Some players have come of age”, he added.
“They are the 12th man for us and there’s another game for them now”.
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“It was such a blur, I’m trying to even remember it was that much of a blur but I don’t know how I managed”.
