Players' Reaction:It's hard to imagine after that night in San Marino, and the less than positive response to the scraping of that 2-1 win, that the Ireland players were enthusiastically anticipating their return to Dublin for these games against Wales and Slovakia.

Points dropped in either qualifier, they knew, would result in the heat being turned up on them and, more particularly, on their manager, to sizzling levels. As if it wasn't balmy enough.

The boys, it's fair to say, were under more than just little pressure.

Well, they survived the ordeal, results-wise at least, even if the performances on Saturday didn't quite have the supporters dancing in the aisles.

Last night was a whole lot better, the crowd reaction confirming as much, so when they emerged from the Croke Park dressingrooms, the players' relief was almost tangible.

Satisfaction, too, that they'd taken six points out of six from the two games, when they knew nothing less would do.

"Yeah, we're delighted with that, I thought the boys did really well," said Stephen Hunt.

"We knew if we had any chance at all of qualifying from this group that we had to win these two games, so to do it, to take the six points, well, we couldn't be happier to be honest with you.

"Slovakia, to be fair, are a good team but they're not world class - we have the Germans to come here, we have the Czechs away, so we know we have a long way to go, but we'll do our best.

"It was great under the lights tonight, a different kind of atmosphere to Saturday, it was electric," he said.

And electric seems to be how the Irish supporters are beginning to regard the Reading man.

Having impressed against Wales, Hunt received an ovation when he came on as a second-half substitute, and half a dozen more from the stands as he lifted the pressure on his Ireland team-mates when they were under the cosh.

"I'd a couple of dodgy touches at the start but I settled in well after that.

"Really I was just told to get the crowd going again, get everyone lifted again, so that's what I tried to do.

"They came at us for a while, created a few chances, but we defended well, and had one or two chances ourselves to finish it off, which unfortunately we didn't take."

Hunt's Reading team-mate Shane Long twice came close to scoring, the first header cleared off the line by a defender - and he cringed when he recalled the moment.

"Ah Jesus, I thought it was in, to be honest, and the second one, I tried hard to get it on target, but it wasn't to be.

"Another day."

"But it was brilliant," said the Tipperary man who twice played for his county hurlers in Croke Park in All-Ireland minor semi-finals.

"We proved we can hack it here, and we proved the media wrong. We did ourselves proud out there, we did it for Stan."

The show mightn't be quite back on the road just yet, but at least the wheels didn't come off at Croke Park the past few days.

Qualification might still look unlikely, but at least it's not impossible anymore, and after the San Marino debacle that in itself is something of a triumph.

So, the show will keep running until September when they resume their campaign away to Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Whether it will extend beyond that, we'll just wait and see.