The ultimate difference between the teams last night; a well worked short corner which freed up Shaun Maloney to float in the decisive goal past a hapless David Forde.
No doubt the set piece had been repeated time and time again on the training ground, but as Scottish manager Gordan Strachan puts it, “we can put on a set-play – but you have to be able to finish like that.”
Talking to the Daily Record Strachan heralded his team's smaller players, such as Steven Naismith and of course Maloney, for their courage on the ball - "our three behind the main strikers, they did well.
We were brave on the ball
“Our smaller guys, considering the height and power they were playing against, were brave on the ball. There wasn’t much football at times but any chance they had to try and do that they would do it.”
The goalscorer was himself talking to the Scottish press post match - describing the hard work that went into delivering such a goal, as well as discussing the Scottish team's current position in the qualifying group.
“We train very hard on them,” he said. “A lot of the time, they don’t happen.
“Sometimes you don’t even try them, but thankfully tonight we did and it affected the result.”
The group is still wide open
When asked whether the result refected the difference in quality between the two teams Maloney was quick to reference last night’s home advantage.
“No, I didn’t feel that.
“I don’t think there’s much between the sides. I think it’ll be pretty similar in June.”
As for the group, "I think there's still so many games - obviously we have to play Ireland, Poland and Germany again - it's far too open and it's just for anyone to go and grasp."
Elsewhere though and the general consensus was one of delight, The Scottish Herald rating all of the Scottish eleven who started the game with between a seven and nine out of 10, other than the disappointing Steven Fletcher who received a six. The young man who put the schackles on Aiden McGeady, left back Andrew Robertson, received a nine out of 10.
Critical column on McGeady
The same paper described the return of McGeady to Parkhead as an irrelevant sideshow. McGeady had spoken at length in the official match programme about his affinity with Parkhead, a bond which according to the Herald is now broken.
“No longer. A former club-mate backed by the cries of more than 50,000 Scots made sure of that.”
Adding substance then to the post-match groans of the RTE panel, Scottish captain Scott Brown says that "Ireland's gameplan was to try and stop us playing football.
“But it didn’t work. We still managed to get the ball down in tight situations and knock nice little one-twos and create chances. Were Ireland lucky to finish with 11 men? I don’t know. There were a few rough tackles but I didn’t get a good eye on them.”
Bringing the utter euphoria to a reflective halt though , BBC Scotland have released details of the young man who tragically fell to his death in a stairwell in Celtic Park last night. Police Scotland have said that there are no suspicious circumstances being investigated.
