The final game before our heros (and possibly Paul MacShane) depart for the Euro's is on and the Aviva is looking splendid in the sun.
23m: Aplogies for the late entry but we were recovering from the news that Darren O'Dea would be in the same back four as Paul MacShane. Ireland have survived for now and Glenn Whelan even had a decent penalty shout.
29m: Xavier from the Aviva - I don't know much about the size of Bosnian community in Ireland, but there are a good 40-50 Bosnians here in the north stand, making a lot of noise. A lot of them are wearing black t-shirts. They're being coordinated by a shirtless guy with a megaphone. The Ireland fans seem to be dreaming about choc-ices and pints of cider.
33m: All eyes are on McShane here. You can see you in person that is his instinct is to run overlaps over Duff and that there's a voice in his head telling him: 'Pull back, pull back'. That said when he goes forward, he looks a bit dangerous, as when he won a corner around the 29th minute. XMcD
44m Great corner from McClean. The header from O'Dea seemed destined from the back of the net, but not to be.
Halftime: The Aviva is a beautiful place on the outside, but inside during match days, its a din of insanely-loud music and a carousel of all kinds of ceaseless advertising. Thankfully the stadium was designed so that the media section faces west and the afternoon sun s at our backs. There's a calm breeze blowing through the stadium.
54m: Where's McClean?:
James McClean is missing from the list of Irish players in the match programme! twitter.com/nathanmurf/sta…
— Nathan Murphy (@nathanmurf) May 26, 2012
67min: Paul McShane instagram via Trevor Meehan:
