POST-MATCH REACTION:THE CELEBRATIONS may be on hold until Tuesday night but there was little effort being made to conceal the sense of satisfaction with the way things had gone for the Irish at the A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn last night as the players made their way towards the team bus to start the first leg of the journey home.

Few of those who drifted through a mixed zone populated for the most part by severely deflated members of the local media had more to be pleased about than Irish midfielder Keith Andrews. A goal, an assist and a commanding performance in midfield made it an especially good night for the 31-year-old Dubliner.

Several of the team’s biggest names have floated the notion at one time or another that they might not be around to try for another major championship, but most of them were in Japan and South Korea, while for Andrews this was possibly the last real chance to try for a first major championship.

As he weighed up what remains to be done on Tuesday night, he acknowledged that it is within touching distance.

“Yeah, it should be a celebration on Tuesday,” he said, “if we can just put in a professional performance. It really should be a very good night for everyone.

“There’s a little bit of disbelief amongst the players to be honest. Obviously we’d come looking for the win but to do it four-nil is a little hard to believe and so everyone has been sitting in there trying to take it in; we’re nearly there if we can just produce a professional performance on Tuesday night.”

It might all have been very different had the Ipswich Town player not popped up to make the breakthrough for the visitors around 13 minutes in.

“We’d looked to get Duffer and Aiden on the ball because we thought they’d have the beating of their full backs, so when I saw Aiden one on one with their full back I’d thought I’d have a little gamble and have a stroll into the box,” he said when asked about the goal. “Thankfully he produced a lovely cross that I was able to finish.

“I think it was a good, solid performance, though, from everyone. I think anybody could see what it meant to us out there tonight.

“There’s a real hunger amongst these players,” he continued, “and after the Armenia result last month, with the draw that we got we knew that we had a good chance, a chance of a lifetime for a lot of us. You don’t get very many chances to qualify and we didn’t let it slide.

“We’ve done particularly well tonight to get the four goals. Okay, we’ve had an advantage with the man, and then with the second man, getting sent off but thankfully we’ve made the most of it.

“We were saying at the break to make sure that we had no regrets, to take whatever chances we had and happily we’ve gone on and do that.”

Skipper Robbie Keane also hailed a great team performance, where his double brought his international tally to 53 goals.

“We came here to get a result and full credit to the players they put in a great performance from the start.

“They had a couple of players sent off but I think we had the job done before that.

“We got the early goal and managed to kick on from there. To come here and win four-nil is a great result.

“The confidence that we have in the squad and the way we played in the whole campaign we deserve to go through and we are looking forward to Tuesday now.”

Keane was also full of praise for his fellow goalscorer. “Jonathan Walters is brilliant.”