The Irish players looked fresh at Lansdowne Road yesterday despite running themselves into the ground for a precious point in Lisbon on Saturday.
Gradually, after shocking two of Europe's footballing giants, Mick McCarthy's players have been adjusting to being the favourites again. And as they went through their paces for the final time before meeting Estonia in tonight's Group Two World Cup qualifier they were looking as though they had, each and every one of them, been born to the role.
As his players stayed out on the pitch to practice their shooting, McCarthy wandered inside to reveal what most of us had been rather taking for granted - he will stick with the same team for a third successive match.
His ambitions for this evening will, of course, be a good deal higher than for the previous two games and the tactics markedly different but, he said: "If I was to leave anybody out then they'd have wondered what they'd done wrong".
In fact, McCarthy had all but confirmed the unchanged side over the previous couple of days. Rather than bring in new faces, McCarthy will simply opt for a more attacking approach with Kevin Kilbane expected to play in a far more advanced role down the flanks and Robbie Keane pushing up alongside Niall Quinn from the slightly deeper role he occupied in Lisbon. "There's a fair bit of pressure on us again," said McCarthy, "there is in every game but it's a different type of pressure this time. These are the sort of games you expect to win."
With a sell out crowd expecting goals and entertainment, the Irish boss recognises the potential for things to become a little difficult if his men fail to get an early goal against a side whose manager makes no bones about his intention to play for a point.
"The crowd are always a factor," he says before adding: "If I was giving my team talk before an away game I'd always make the point that, if we can keep the home side quiet for the first 20 minutes or so then the best supporters in the world can start to get impatient.
"If that happens you can end up in a bit of a scrap, which is not what I want but if it happens the important thing is for everybody to keep their heads and get on with grinding them down."
With everybody on a bit of a high after the weekend, complacency looks to be the greatest danger against a side that, while competitive, should nevertheless be beatable. Having seen them against Portugal, McCarthy feels the main threat posed by the Estonians will be at set pieces.
Having generously rewarded the faith placed in them so far, however, Gary Breen and Richard Dunne will, even more than their team mates, be determined not to undo with some momentary lapse all that has been achieved so far in this group.
Estonian coach Tarmo Ruutli will, of course, be rather hoping that his two big strikers can strike it lucky but he admits that his men "will be under pressure here in just the way that the Irish were in Lisbon." For the visiting coach a draw is something he "has been dreaming about" but he stops short of predicting anything more than that his side will prove themselves capable of causing their hosts some problems.
That won't come as any great shock to McCarthy who has said several times now that he was impressed with the way his opposite number's side competed against Portugal. The 3-1 scoreline, admitted McCarthy, made it sound rather easy for Portugal whereas they had to fight hard for their points right up until the closing stages. Sadly the Irish boss made no mention of Urmas Rooba whose last-minute booking against Andorra last weekend has ruled him out of tonight's encounter.
The absence of the full-back is, says Ruutli, a major blow. "He is quick," remarks the visiting coach "and against Portugal he was excellent. He was playing against Figo and Figo had to change wings because he couldn't get around him."
Now there must be quite a few defenders down the years who have tried to convince themselves that their own powers of containment were the real reason behind the winger's regular switches from one side to the other but it's a little unusual to hear a manager buying into the theory.
So either Ruutli has been conned or Jason McAteer is the luckiest man on earth.
The Teams
Ireland: Kelly (Blackburn); Carr (Tottenham Hotspur), Breen (Coventry), Dunne (Everton), Harte (Leeds Utd); McAteer (Blackburn), Kinsella (Charlton), Keane (Manchester Utd), Kilbane (Sunderland); Keane (Inter Milan), Quinn (Sunderland).
Estonia: Poom (Derby County); Allas (Flora Talinn), Stepanov (Flora Talinn), Lemsalu (Tulevik Viljandi), Saviauk (Flora Talinn); Viikmae (Valerenga), Anniste (Flora Talinn), Reim (Kotkan), Terehhov (Brann Bergen); Oper (Aalborg), Zelinski (FC Lahti).
