Boy wonder has his peers humming

True, a significant batch of the World Cup likely-lads were not in attendance last night, back home nursing injuries of varying degrees of gravity, and true, it was only a friendly at a time when most players' minds are focused on matters of the club kind (or, at least, that's what their managers would wish to believe), but try telling the likes of Colin Healy, Steven Reid and Nick Colgan that this bout with Denmark counted for nothing.

If you're foolhardy enough to try, you'll be served with a look of the quizzical kind, one that politely asks the question: "Haven't you heard - there's a World Cup just around the bend, and there might just be a squad place or two up for grabs?" Indeed.

Little wonder, then, that Healy, for one, was satisfied with his night's work, one that gave him another opportunity to make Mick McCarthy's squad selection task a whole lot more troublesome than it might seem. Mind you, you won't hear Healy blowing his own trumpet.

Great debut Colin, another impressive performance tonight?

"Ah yeah, I did alright, I enjoyed it, yeah," says football's, surely, most quietly spoken man.

You looked very mature out there, though, it can't be easy when there's so much at stake.

"No, it's not easy, but you just have to try your best, that's all."

The World Cup?

"Not thinking about," he says, smiling. "honest."

Man-of-the-match Damien Duff was, though, the main topic of conversation in the players' tunnel after the game.

Steve Staunton, how good is Duff at this stage of his career?

"I don't know, I'm the wrong person to be asking, you should ask some of the Danish boys. It's not very nice marking him, I know from club football. The world's at the boy's feet at the moment and unfortunately for some of us in England he's only going to get better, but for Ireland it's great."

Jason McAteer, what about Damien's performance? There's hardly been a better 45 minutes at Lansdowne Road.

"Well, apart from mine in the second half against Holland," McAteer says. "Na, he's got that in his locker, hasn't he? I've been shouting about him being world class for ages and he never lets me down when he comes over.

"Whether Mick plays him up front or on the left we'll have to wait and see, but he's definitely pushed himself into the frame for starting, never mind going. I'll say it again - he's a world class player and he proved it again tonight."

And Clinton Morrison, he got his goal in the end? "Yeah, it was coming and coming and coming. Actually, I came in (to the dressing rooms) with about 10 minutes to go and when he came in I said to him, 'unlucky, your goal will come next game' - I didn't know he scored'. I'm made up for him, he worked hard, he's a good lad, fiery, the lot."

"I was a bit frustrated by the time the goal came but I knew I just had to keep working hard," said Morrison.

"When it came, in the 90th minute I knew I had to put it away. But I enjoyed it all, the whole night," he beamed. "Great."