O’Neill on Ireland’s ‘inner self-belief’ to make World Cup

Daniel Storey

Martin O’Neill is backing his Republic of Ireland players’ “inner self-belief” to see them through their World Cup qualifying showdown with Denmark.

The Republic take on the Danes in the first leg of their winner-takes-all tie in Copenhagen tonight having won their last two play-offs and confident they have what it takes to complete a hat-trick.

O’Neill said:

“Through experience, the players have matured. I think there’s a good belief in the camp that maybe didn’t exist a couple of seasons ago.

“It’s an inner self-belief. It’s not one that is flaunted, it’s an inner self-belief that we can come out and compete.

“We know what we have to do, we know we must compete for almost everything at every given minute and while every single international side has limitations somewhat, we are going to try to stay as strong as we possibly can and play to our strengths, which is the most important thing.

“It’s something we do, use that experience we’ve had in the last couple of years to some good effect, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

O’Neill and his players arrived in Denmark under no illusions about the size of the task ahead of them as the Danes are ranked 19th by FIFA, seven places above the Republic.

However, the two-legged victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina which booked their place at the Euro 2016 finals remains fresh in the memory.