Carling Nations Cup was very Beneficial for the ROI team

As an ROI fan i think it was great to win the Carling Nations Cup and all the bragging rights that went with it. Remember too we won it without the services of Dunne,O'Shea,Duff,Doyle,Mc Carhty and Long. The 5-0 thrashing of NIreland was a result i particularly cherished.

But to be honest if we had lost the other night to Macedonia it would have all been for nothing. Our EURO Qualifying hopes would have been in tatters.

I believe that due to the fact we won the Carling Nations Cup it helped the ROI players confidence going into the Macedonia match. And obviously for Robbie Keane and Shay Given it was great for them to get some much needed match practice. And for Robbie to rediscover his goal scoring!!

 

Totally agree, it was great experience for our fringe players and also good for Shay and Robbie to get some match experience under their belt. This clearly benefitted both players against Macedonia. I would go so far as to say that we wouldn't have beaten Macedonia if we hadn't played the 2 matches against the North and Scotland the previous week.

 

And now we've gone and beaten Italy! Yee-ha!