The table never lies, or so they say, but there are shades of defeat and shades of victory and Ireland’s three points should be posted with an asterisk. As a gale howled and the ball ricocheted off the artificial pitch, Mick McCarthy’s players laboured to a win that was impossible to evaluate except for its own sake.
“It’s a mixture of a lot of feelings,” Shane Duffy, the Brighton & Hove Albion and Ireland centre half, said, but jubilation after the 1-0 victory was not one of them.
Gibraltar did what Ireland do, making life difficult, spreading frustration and praying for error, and the role-reversal was not appealing. “We tried to build it up like an FA Cup tie where it’s underdogs against a bigger
