Soccer:Shane Long believes his winning goal in the friendly against Bosnia-Herzegovina was "massive" and could be important in the long run as the Republic of Ireland head to their Euro 2012 training camp in Italy.
The West Brom striker’s 78th-minute header secured a 1-0 win, and tomorrow sees Giovanni Trapattoni’s squad depart for their pre-tournament base in Montecatini.
Long said: “The gaffer put me on to get the winner and luckily I was on the end of a brilliant Aiden McGeady cross.”
Asked how important victory could be psychologically, Long said: “It’s massive. We joined up on Sunday, and we wanted to get off on a good foot today and get a bit of a roll going before we go to Poznan (for the game against Croatia in June 10th).
“Job well done. We go on to Hungary on June 4th and we’ll try to get a win there and get a bit of confidence going . The whole country’s getting right behind us. They’re all coming over to support us. Hopefully we’ll give them something to shout about.”
The home side might have won more comfortably in front of a crowd of 37,100 but the post denied McGeady and the bar thwarted Jonathan Walters, as did his clubmate and Bosnia goalkeeper Asmir Begovic denying them.
The win extended Ireland’s unbeaten run to 13 games, and came against a team Trapattoni selected because of their similarity to the Croats, who Ireland face before taking on Spain and Italy in Gdansk and Poznan respectively.
“It was tough but we’re glad with the win,” said man-of-the-match McGeady. “Bosnia had a few chances in the first half but in the second half we got chances ourselves and it could have been three or four.”
Richard Dunne was exhausted as he came off with 20 minutes to go, one of six substitutions made by Trapattoni, who introduced McGeady for the second half in place of Damien Duff.
The veteran defender admitted: “I was just tired in the sun. It’s so hot, it takes it out of you. Today was good. When Aiden came on he changed the game and really opened them up
“The atmosphere among us is really good. To win games obviously builds that. It’s nice to win our final game in Dublin, to keep the crowd interested and excited for what’s to come.
“We know against eastern European sides it’s always hard. They’re a tough side to play against, they’re technically very good. But we’ve coped and we’ve kept a clean sheet and that’s the big thing for us.”
