Many Ireland fans feared the worst heading into yesterday's game against Scotland.
Stephen Kenny's side had been very poor in the opening two matches of their UEFA Nations League campaign, while they were also coming up against aside who (the play-off loss to Ukraine apart) have looked greatly improved over the last year or so.
Few could have predicted the margin of victory that would follow.
Ireland were completely dominant in the game, coming out on top in every area before eventually running out as fully deserving 3-0 winners. It was quite the occasion for the home supporters, although it was an equally dire affair for those who made the short trip across the Irish Sea.
Bringing a massive crowd to the Aviva and making plenty of noise before the game, the Scotland fans were a fairly dejected bunch by the time the final whistle sounded. In fact, they would even boo their players off the pitch.
Andy Robertson says Scotland players deserved boos
Speaking after the game, Scotland captain Any Robertson said he and his teammate could have no complaints about the reaction of the supporters at the end of the game.
To the fans behind the goal booing us off, it was completely correct. We know they travel a long way and pay a lot of money.
That performance is nowhere near good enough in a Scotland jersey. We will need to assess things as a team, assess individually and hit the reset button...
Nowhere near good enough. We've now said that twice in the space of ten days, which isn't us. We've let the manager down which is so disappointing for us. He set us up in a way and we didn't carry that out.
I think every single one of us lost our individual battles which can't happen in these types of games.
Second balls went to them and they were winning the tackles and when it goes like that then the result is only going to go one way.
Scotland entered this international window with ambitions of qualifying for the World Cup, although they would come up well short in the play-off against Ukraine. While they would beat Armenia in their Nations League opener, this result has now dented their hopes of achieving promotion to League 'A'.
They came up against an Ireland side with their backs against the wall, although they should not have been taken by surprise after the hosts made a fast start to the game.
Robertson admitted that they planned to hold Ireland at arm's length in the opening stages and attempt to turn the Dublin crowd against them, although they came up well short in their efforts to do so.
Coming here we knew they were under pressure. The had two defeats in their first two games and they were all probably getting questioned.
We had to weather the storm at the start and we didn't do it.
Last night in the team meeting and this morning in another meeting we knew they were going to try and get off to a good start and we had to prevent that. We knew if we did that their crowd would get on them.
But we did the complete opposite and gave away easy corners, let them win easy tackles and get their crowd riled up and that set the tone for the game.
Unfortunately we probably didn't get into the game until the last ten minutes when we're 3-0 down and don't have a chance.
Scotland will now travel to take on Armenia on Tuesday evening, while Ireland will be hoping to continue this momentum when they take on Ukraine in Poland on the same day.
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