Ireland's big moment is what World Cup qualifying is all about

Troy Parrott's treble decided a tense match in Hungary that felt like a different sport to the Premier League

- Jonathan Wilson

Last Thursday, Irish football was in a bleak place. They had two games remaining in World Cup qualifying and apparently no hope of making it to North America next summer. Another campaign had collapsed in predictable ways: they couldn’t score, they made simple errors, too few of their players play for elite sides and those who do seemed unable to reproduce club form for their country.

Their one possible star, Evan Ferguson, had not been energised by a move to Roma - quite the reverse - and although there was vague talk of a new contract for their manager, the amiable Icelandic dentist Heimir Hallgrímsson, everybody thought he would be off after the game in Hungary and was vaguely dreading another Football Association of Ireland recruitment saga, which would inevitably take months, throw up a series of implausible names and result in the job being given to Hallgrímsson’s assistant, John O’Shea.