NOW THAT'S IMPRESSIVE!

Heimir's vision is starting to take shape for improving Irish team

- camondunphy

I WAS sceptical about Heimir Hallgrimsson as Ireland manager until last Friday night.

I doubted the Icelander but I saw something in the 1-1 draw with Senegal at the Aviva that I did not expect to see but was nonetheless glad to witness — our pressing game in midfield.

We played with purpose. That going on meant that no player was going through the motions — and that's great.

At this stage of the English club season — the Championship finished over a month ago and the Premier League more than two weeks ago now — that temptation was ignored.

That is down to Hallgrimsson, to his assistant John O'Shea and to the team behind the team and they deserve great credit for the attitude being so good.

A team’s approach is everything and we played with real energy. Now it’s very important to keep that up.

On Friday, it was clear to me that what we were trying to do was to stop the opposition in the first instance — and get momentum from midfield.

That is hugely important and that’s what we did.

The visitors ranked 19th in the world — left leading players on the bench but we could have had another goal or two on top of Kasey McAteer's opener.

We play Hungary and Armenia to start our qualification campaign in September and they both lost the other night.

Hungary were beaten 2-0 at home by Sweden while the Armenians were hammered 5-2 by Kosovo.