Fans find their voice on dramatic night at Aviva Stadium

Dublin 4 proved to be a home away from home for Poland, as many places do for one of the world's great diasporas. But on a night when Irish supporters found themselves out-shouted and out-sung in their own stands, substitute Shane Long's late equaliser salvaged a draw where it most mattered, and kept alive the Republic's European Championship qualifying hopes.

As the crowd streamed out of the Aviva Stadium after this thunderous occasion, a man with a Dublin accent was heard to suggest that Ireland would "have to win in Warsaw now". His friend thought about this a moment and found grounds for optimism. "There won't be as many Poles there," he joked.

That may have been an exaggeration, but not by much. This was surely the noisiest game played at the Aviva since the stadium opened. It brought back powerful memories of the old Lansdowne Roar, the revival of which Roy Keane had called for in the run-up to the match.

Unfortunately, for most of the night, the Irish fans had little to do with the decibel levels. It's not that we weren't shouting. It's just that we couldn't hear ourselves with the racket the Poles were making, especially after Slawomir Peszko gave them a first-half lead.

Inspired

The fans in green did find their voice eventually, in part inspired by another second-half substitute, James McClean, whose brilliant run and cross ended with a Robbie Keane header turned onto the post by the Polish goalkeeper.

But hope for the official home side was waning when Robbie Brady’s 91st-minute cross fell to the feet of Long, who toe-poked it past Lukasz Fabianski to the great relief of the supporters in green.

The game had an apt curtain raiser when representatives of both countries gathered in Sackville Place, just off Dublin's O'Connell Street, for the unveiling of a plaque to Pawel Strzelecki, a 19th-century Polish philanthropist who did heroic work in Ireland during the Famine.

It’s thought that at least 150,000 people survived as a result: a number not dissimilar to estimates of Ireland’s latter-day Polish community.

In fact, Irish football and rugby fans still sing about the Famine at every game. And sure enough, the Fields of Athenry resounded around Lansdowne Road yet again last night.

But in one of the occasion’s several ironies, the number of Strzelecki’s latter-day compatriots in exile here meant the song was rather quieter than normal.