World Cup Qualifying Group: Republic of Ireland v Armenia (tonight, Aviva Stadium, 7.45pm)
AFTER too many years of mediocrity, it was plain to see that teams don’t fear playing Ireland any more when Armenia set about them in Yerevan last month.
The Republic had already sailed close to disaster when Nathan Collins tripped Argentina-born Lucas Zelarayán and conceded a penalty.
It all went downhill from there and the defeat has haunted Ireland ever since. Losing to the same opposition at home is unthinkable and Ireland skipper Collins is determined that lightning will not strike twice.
“We have our chance to put it right, help ourselves, put whatever happened away,” he said.
“Get that pride back and just be sure of who we are and what we want to do.”
The Brentford central defender rejects the notion that Ireland – who have now gone half-a-dozen home World Cup qualifiers (lost two, drawn four) without a win – have become used to defeat.
“I hate losing, to be honest, I really hate it,” he said.
“In my career, I’ve lost a lot and that’s just the way it is. I’ve played for some teams that are probably not at the top of the league and you lose games and you have to pick yourself back up, you have to get back on the horse and go again against the next game, the next game…
“You might lose and it takes so much out of you, but it’s that fire inside of you where I hate losing, I always want to change it, I always want to turn that around and be a winner, be a winning team.
The Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign has reached the point of no return (Zed Jameson/PA)
“I want to win games, win against the big teams, win against the small teams, just always drive that same standard of just wanting to win, wanting to put goals in, wanting to keep clean sheets, wanting to stop their best players.
“That’s what it is, it’s the will to get up again and go again. When you lose it hurts, you give yourself 24 hours, you look back at the game, you watch your clips again, you get on with it and you move on because there’s so many games.”
Throughout the three games of this campaign, goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher has been outstanding. Collins says the Cork native, his team-mate at club and country, is driven by a desire to win games and it is typical of the attitude in this Ireland squad.
“You have to have people around you that want to push you,” said Collins.
“Lucky enough, I think in this squad we have that, we have good people here. Caoimhin, my teammate, he always wants to win. He’s coming from a winning team at Liverpool and he has that habit of winning.
“The other lads I’m very close with here, they all want to win, they all want to succeed and if we can all help each other with that, if we can all give each other that bit of fire we have inside of us, it creates a team fire and hopefully we’ll have that on Tuesday.”
By this stage it’s well documented how that fire was missing last month and Collins is at loss to explain why. However, he feels that Ireland’s battling performance in Lisbon on Saturday night has restored belief and the Boys in Green will get the win they need on Tuesday night.
“We never got going,” he said.
“I think they grew in confidence from us struggling to get going and to create stuff. The togetherness we’ve seen in Portugal, the way we were connected as 11, was a completely different way than we were connected in Armenia. I think Armenia took confidence from that, they took our confidence away from us.
“They probably had better chances, better spells and they looked a better team. From everything we’ve been through since Heimar (Hallgrimsson) came in, it really hurt because we knew as a team we were so much better than that.
“I think that’s what the message was as well before Portugal – we are so much better than that, we have belief that we are a better team than that.
“We have belief that we can go and beat big teams and go against these teams and we can get results and put in good performances like we did in Portugal.”