As the blood drained from our faces on Friday night, and Séamus Coleman lay rigid on the Aviva Stadium turf, Shane Long did what Shane Long does; be an all-round sound bloke.
Hearts the country over melted as the Tipp marksman hugged his stricken captain, who it would transpire had suffered a double leg-break thanks to an utterly irresponsible and reckless challenge from Wales' Neil Taylor, who in an instant became 'that type of player'.
Corny as it might sound, Long's act offered most of us a degree of comfort. At least a friend was down there with Séamie, and he wasn't alone. Similar to how we all put the ball in the roof of Edwin van der Sar's net in 2001, or how each of us booted that ball down the sideline with Keith Andrews in Poland in 2012, we all hugged Ireland's captain on Friday. Or, at least, we all wanted to.
Shane Long hugging Seamus Coleman who was on the wrong end of a horror tackle with a suspected broken leg. pic.twitter.com/KP7PSlB8YP
— Ball Street (@BallStreet) March 24, 2017
It's probably wrong to describe Long's act as 'kindness', to be honest. You'd expect nothing else from a teammate and, frankly speaking, a character of Long's ilk. But it turns out there was more method to the Southampton man's embrace than met the eye.
His wife, Kayleah, explained to Niamh Horan of the Sunday Independent that the Ireland striker had used the breathing technique that the couple had learned when Kayleah was pregnant with their first daughter.
Shane told me he had thought of the time I gave birth to Teigan. I had a hypnotherapy birth and they taught Shane to help me to breath through it.
He told me, 'It all came back to me. I was just talking to Seamus, teaching him how to breathe through it all'.
I asked if Séamus was listening to him and he said, 'Yes, to be fair, he was. He was really breathing well'.
And suddenly, Long's post-match comments, where he told reporters that he was trying to 'settle and relax' his captain, take on extra weight.
Kayleah Long also told the Sindo that Coleman had sent her husband a message to thank him for his actions on the pitch.
