Player Reaction: It's hard to imagine when you see him emerge, beaming, from the dressing-room that Niall Quinn might well have missed all of this. Emmet Malone gets the post-match thoughts of the veteran striker.
Six months ago his club form had hit a bad patch and it seemed that international games made life that little bit more of a struggle for the 35-year-old who had always said he wanted to go before he overstayed his welcome.
The doubts persisted, he recalls, until he was assured by Mick McCarthy that he still had an important role to play in a squad now populated by somewhat newer models.
"Now", he laughs with the way of a veteran, "I'm just happy to get on and help out the younger lads in whatever way I can". It's the boyishness about the Sunderland striker's grin as he speaks, however, that does most to suggest he's enjoying his World Cup swansong.
For all the problems early on this game was no different. It took much more time for an Irish team that was supposed to be comfortably the better side to settle and not for the first time during the past couple of weeks there was a bit of sorting out to be done at the break.
Quinn's expression as he chats about a win that has extended their adventure by at least five days leaves the small cluster of journalists that has gathered around him after the game in little doubt that the big Dubliner still thrives on an international pitch after 90 appearances for his country just as he did when he was a World Cup newcomer himself at Italia '90.
"It was a difficult game, though" he insists. "There was a type of pressure on us this evening that probably hadn't been there since the Iran game. A pressure that comes in big games when you are expected to win and maybe we don't react too well to that sort of thing.
"I could give you a handful of examples of games where we've struggled when we're in that position but tonight I thought was a lot like Macedonia. Do you remember that? When we went a goal up, were in complete control and suddenly it started to waver on us? It was definitely a problem but then that's why I think next weekend's game will suit us. We'll be back to a situation where nobody expects to win and the team spirit, the spirit in this squad is frightening now, will give us a huge chance of springing an upset."
While still on the bench in the first half Quinn could only sit and wonder how a game that had started so brightly could so quickly become such a battle. "The theory was that at half-time we'd be one or two up," he recalls. "If it was only one, but we were playing well then fair enough but it wasn't like that when we came in. We knew we were lucky to be in front".
The more direct approach in the second half quickly paid off, though, and by the end he insists Ireland were "good value" for the three-goal margin. "I thought the change worked well. The one part of the game that Damien wouldn't be used to playing up front is trying to play with his back to goal because it's very different to what he's used to out on the wing."
Towards the end Duff's goal, he said, was a special moment for all of he team with the veteran striker taking particular delight at how thrilled the younger man was to score the second goal of his international career. With a laugh, though, he admits to conserving his energy for the time that remained rather than making his way across the pitch to congratulate his fellow Dubliner straight away.
He was closer at hand for Gary Breen's goal, however, with the pair even discussing how they might make life difficult for each other's markers before Steve Staunton floated a free kick in from the right. "It just shows you the composure he's capable of to just flick it like that with the outside of his right foot. It was a cultured centre forward's goal but whatever way he scored it it's no more than he deserves for six years of very hard work for this squad." Quinn jokes that with the team's other two strikers doing their bit in this game "I'll have to do mine if I get the chance again". He doesn't sound like a man who expects a 22nd international goal to be what he remembers these World Cup finals for. "No, what I'll remember being out here for is the fans. I mean Jesus, Mary and Joseph...If there was 65,000 in the ground tonight how many Irish were there?
"When we went around to say thank you to the fans at he end we were expecting an awful lot of them to be locals wearing Ireland jerseys because we couldn't believe there could be so many Irish there. But there they were, in every corner of the ground. Between them and the Japanese who came along to get behind us we looked as though we owned the place again tonight."
