With the qualifying campaign over, attention now switches to Thursday’s Play-Off draw when Michael O’Neill’s side will learn who they will face away from home in the March 26 Semi-Final and who and where they could play in the decider five days later.

Northern Ireland will enter the draw as a Pot Four side, having made it to this stage via their Nations League success last year, and will take on a Pot One nation in the Semi.

Ahead of Tuesday night’s World Cup qualifiers, Italy, Turkey and Poland looked to be potential opponents, with an encounter at a neutral venue against Ukraine also in the mix, while facing the Republic of Ireland in the Final is a possibility.

Winning competitive matches on their travels has been an issue for O’Neill’s young guns but Galbraith is unconcerned about that prior to the draw.

“I don’t think it matters. We’ve shown we can be a match for anyone,” stated the Swansea City ace who, as he did in the first four matches of the World Cup qualifying campaign, shone in Monday’s 1-0 home win over Luxembourg having missed last week’s defeat in Slovakia through suspension.

“In one-off games, you just want momentum going into them, and I think we can take a bit of momentum from the win over Luxembourg even though there’s a long gap to the Play-Off.

“We’ll look to keep playing how we’ve been playing and we’ll be ready for March when it comes around.

“Like all the lads, you want to play in big games, which we have done through this campaign, and it will be big being involved in the Play-Offs.”

Ethan Galbraith

Ethan Galbraith

Galbraith, who was at Manchester United as a youngster, has been exceptional for Northern Ireland over the past year and there is a strong argument to suggest he was the top performer for the country in the World Cup qualifying campaign which ended with victory at Windsor Park in a scrappy affair against Luxembourg, meaning O’Neill’s side finished with nine points and in third in Group A.

“It was maybe a bit of a scrappy game at times but I thought there were periods when we did well,” said Galbraith about Monday’s win.

“We would have wanted to play a bit better on the ball, though the pitch was quite hard to play on. It was lively. No excuses from us though. We wanted to keep the ball better than we did.”

There was an eye-catching performance and winning penalty from Tottenham’s Jamie Donley, who is on loan at Stoke City this season.

Last term Galbraith and Donley were club mates at Leyton Orient when the latter was playing on loan.

“I was delighted for Jamie to score,” said 24-year-old Galbraith.

“Obviously I played club football with him when he was on loan with Leyton Orient and I thought he was excellent in the game against Luxembourg.

“He took the penalty really well and the quality that he has I’ve seen first hand in training and games for a year. I know what he’s capable of and it was a great night for him.”