Players'Quotes/Emmet Malone talks to the midfielder about his return to the international starting line-up after three years

Lee Carsley, the 28-year-old Everton midfielder, last started a competitive game for the Republic in November 1999, when his error late on handed the Turks a penalty from which they scored the away goal that ultimately carried them to the finals of Euro 2000.

More than three years on he contributed solidly to a win that has done much to revive Ireland's hopes of reaching next year's European finals, his performance in Greece having apparently persuaded the new Irish management team that he presented a better option on the right of midfield than either Colin Healy or Sheffield Wednesday's Alan Quinn. Their faith proved well-founded, although if the former Derby and Blackburn player could actually finish he might single-handedly have stolen the show at the Lokomotiv stadium.

Damien Duff's goal from the follow-up ensured that Carsley's first miss of the game could easily be laughed off afterwards, but the midfielder's relief that Gary Doherty's winner four minutes from time had deflected attention from his second failed attempt to find the net was obvious as he cheerfully reflected on his 24th outing for the Republic.

"(The first one) hit the post, yeah, but then Duffer hit a rapser," he chuckles, "and it went in so it didn't matter so much. It was important to get that goal because the longer it stayed at 0-0 the more confident they were getting and the more the crowd was getting behind them."

Even then, he admitted, he and team-mates made life difficult for themselves, losing their grip on the game for a spell that allowed their hosts to haul themselves level.

"We were playing a counter-attacking game, hoping to nick the ball off them in midfield, but we started off a little bit sloppily in the second half. Even from the kick-off we gave the ball away straight away. We put ourselves on the back foot."

Less than two minutes after the restart Carsley might have put the result beyond doubt when Giorgi Shashiashvili's badly underhit backpass left the Irishman in one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

"Yeah, it's frustrating. I'd a fair idea that the lad hadn't seen me but I wasn't sure whether I could have taken a touch. My instinct was just to hit it straight away and that's what I did. I tried to push it across the goalie but he made a good save."

After the Georgians equalised the miss looked as though it might prove to be another costly error, but Doherty's late header left Carsley smiling and everyone in the squad looking forward to Wednesday's game with a new sense of purpose.

"I'm delighted for Gary. He puts himself about so much and he sacrifices himself for the team. It's very difficult for him. Refs don't tend to favour big men and he gets a lot of fouls against him but not too many frees. Anyone who works that hard deserves everything that they get and I thought the goal was a fair reward for the amount of effort he had put in over the course of the game.

"And it's given us a massive result, too, absolutely massive. We came on this trip with a target of six points and if we could get back on the plane home with all of them we'd have put ourselves right back in it.

"We played Russia and Switzerland and on our day we can beat both of them, it doesn't matter whether it's at Lansdowne Road or away. In both of those games we were poor. I'd say we lost both rather than they won them. We were disappointing, particularly coming off the back of the World Cup.

"But the team spirit's always been there. We know we've all got to be playing well because we don't have enough good players that we just have to turn up and turn over teams. We've got to work hard and pull together. That was back today."