Martin O’Neill was full of praise for Jeff Hendrick and Jon Walters after the Republic of Ireland’s 1-0 victory over Georgia in a vital Euro 2016 qualifier at Aviva Stadium.
Walters hit the net from close range in the 69th minute, taking advantage of a brilliant piece of play from Hendrick who beat three defenders before sliding the scoring pass acriss the six-yard box.
Commenting on Hendrick’s slicing run from the wing to deep into the heart of the Georgian box, O’Neill told RTÉ Sport's Tony O'Donoghue: “Magnificent, absolutely magnificent. He’s got that, he has the ability to do that, sometimes he just needs a wee bit more encouragement. But it was great to see, and Jon Walters who has had a fantastic tournament for us ends up scoring the goal.”
Hendrick said: "Two of them were closing me down so I tried to go through them. The third player came out and thankfully I went past him. Jonny made a great run and got it in.
"Obviously they got out a bit easy in the first half and we struggled with the formation they played. In the second half we tried to get in their faces and not give them time. I thought we started the second half really brightly and obviously then we got the goal. We were more solid in the middle."
As for Walters, O’Neill expressed his enthusiasm for the qualities that the powerful Stoke City front-man brings to the Irish set-up. He added: “He’s been absolutely fantastic for us. He’s got a great, great heart and everything else he brings to us, he’s the essence of our club...we have a sort of club mentality. Certainly the essence of our team.”
Ireland struggled in the first-half and O’Neill opted to withdraw team captain Robbie Keane at half-time. Fatigue played a role in that call.
O’Neill said: “He (Keane) is our natural goalscorer, you’re still looking for a goal. I just didn’t think he had the energy there this evening. Just my view. I thought Shane Long, buoyed by his goal against Gibraltar, would come on and maybe find a way for us but as it turns out Jon Walters and Jeff Hendrick have done it for us.”
O’Neill said: “It’s always been a fight. We’ve had to fight for every single particle that’s going. But we found a way tonight to win a match which was very, very important for us. Again, it gives us a a lot of spirit to go into the Germany match. We still have to find some more points and it won’t be easy obviously.”
O’Neill will have to plan for Ireland’s next fixture against Germany in Dublin on 8 October without Glenn Whelan or James McClean, both of whom picked up yellow cards that will result in one-match suspensions.
He added: “That’s the nature of this. It’s very, very difficult to go through a ten-game programme and not find somebody on yellow cards.”
