KEITH ANDREWS said that his post-match altercation with Lassana Diarra on Saturday night will not have any effect of Irish team’s focus on winning the second leg of their World Cup play-off in Paris on Wednesday.

“All our lads are aware of it so we’ll see what happens on Wednesday,” he said. “But it’s a very minor thing, isn’t it? I don’t think anyone’s going to look on it as extra motivation or anything. After all, there’s a World Cup at stake.”

Andrews was clearly angered by something Diarra said after the final whistle – Richard Dunne also became involved in the fracas – but the Dubliner declined to reveal what it was precisely that the Real Madrid midfielder had done to antagonise him.

“I don’t want to say exactly what he said but it was a disrespectful comment which probably typifies them, to be honest.”

Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni described the comment afterwards as an insult aimed at the Irish people. “Yeah, that’s about accurate,” said Andrews. “It (the tie) is only half way finished and for a person to come out with something like that, it’s very disappointing.”