Fahey finds perfect time to announce his arrival

Armenia 0 Rep of Ireland 1:THIS WAS, of course, only a beginning and it will be a while yet before the Irish supporters, who serenaded their team off the pitch at the Republican Stadium in Yerevan, have something to get really excited about.

The early signs, though, are that Giovanni Trapattoni’s side may have stored away some of the spirit of Paris for consumption on occasions like this, when the game might not capture the imagination and opposition won’t lie down, but the points have to be taken just the same.

For the locals it all must have seemed terribly cruel for they turned in a spirited performance that had their visitors on the back foot for long stretches and they must have felt they deserved a draw.

They created a greater number of chances than the more fancied Irish, too, but there was a sense from early on that Trapattoni’s strike force was better equipped to take one of theirs, although in the end the man who stepped up to the plate when it mattered had hardly seemed the most likely candidate.

Keith Fahey, in fact, wasn’t long on the pitch when the chance to make a major mark on his competitive international debut arrived. Ireland’s build-up, like everything else last night, was swift; Liam Lawrence feeding Robbie Keane, who turned his man but couldn’t get a shot off.

The ball ran behind Kevin Doyle who couldn’t take control of it, but did enough to move the ball into the path of Fahey, who only had to keep his head to score at the far post.

And he did that admirably.

The strike came 14 minutes from the end and that short time must have dragged past for the travelling supporters as the Irish dug in desperately to defend a slender lead.

It must have been far more painful in the end, though, for the home supporters, who had clearly sensed that they were on course to add Ireland to the impressive collection of scalps amassed here, if only they had the fire-power required to beat Shay Given.

In fact, it had been a long and hard night for just about everybody involved. It had started furiously and rarely let up with Armenia looking to take the game to their Irish opponents at every opportunity; closing them down in midfield, breaking at pace when they won possession and seeking to test Given, particularly early on, with a succession of shots from around the edge of the area.

Most of the time Trapattoni’s men coped well but there were let-offs too, not least the one in the opening minutes when Paul Green inexplicably failed to control a straightforward pass out of defence from Richard Dunne and Levon Pachajyan promptly latched on to the loose ball only to squander the chance by shooting when he had more time to do better.

Pachajyan was a persistent thorn in Ireland’s side with the right-sided midfielder’s pace pushing Kevin Kilbane to his limits more than once when he sought to go head-to-head with the left-back and, almost more effectively, leaving his opponent stranded in no-man’s land when he held back in order to make a late run towards the area.

Both approaches yielded chances but the 26-year-old’s finishing or final ball never quite matched his approach work and Given, to be fair, had nothing overly spectacular to do at any stage in order to prevent the ball hitting the back of the net.

At the other end Keane and the outstanding Doyle were having to work ferociously hard in order to hold the ball up as those behind regularly sought to pick them out with early balls, but both performed well.

Keane might have put his side ahead within eight minutes, but volleyed agonisingly wide from Doyle’s flick-on with just goalkeeper Roman Berezovsky to beat.

Out wide, Aiden McGeady had his moments as well, most memorably when Lawrence switched the direction of play with an outstanding crossfield ball that the Spartak Moscow winger controlled wonderfully before sidestepping one defender, cutting inside another and then shooting narrowly wide from 20 metres out.

However, the visitors’ best chances of the opening period tended to come from set pieces. Having effectively won a corner by pressuring Berezovsky under a Lawrence free, Seán St Ledger drew a good reaction stop from the goalkeeper seconds later when McGeady floated the ball across.

Kilbane being bundled over by the penalty spot as the corner was being taken, though, was just one of a couple of half-decent-looking penalty claims the Irish had prior to the break, with Keane also appearing to have been taken down six minutes before the break and four minutes after he had a goal, correctly it seemed, disallowed by the Hungarian officials for offside.

After the break, the Irish skipper again thought he had fired his side in front only to see his close-range shot bounce back off the foot of the post.

As the night wore on, Trapattoni must have been hoping to see his players exert a little more control over the tempo of the contest, but things slowed only modestly as the second half got underway and his side repeatedly got themselves into trouble. Given the slightly frantic end-to-end nature of the game, Green and Glenn Whelan struggled, despite their high work-rate and the possession won by the Stoke City midfielder when dropping deep to lend a hand.

Edgar Malakyan should have equalised a third of the way into the second half only for his poor touch to cost him the opportunity, while Henrik Mkhitaryan had a chance but this time Dunne was on hand to block the shot.

The Aston Villas defender was a commanding presence again despite one of his headers almost nestling in Given’s top corner. He repeatedly intervened at key moments to get in blocks as those around him looked rattled.

All of the back four made important contributions late on, with St Ledger’s diving header to cut out a cross standing out. Given was called into action with increasingly regularity, but he wasn’t ever quite required to match his best save of the night, which had come prior to the goal, from Mkhitaryan, as the locals failed to salvage something from what had been a terrific game.

ARMENIA: Berezovsky; Hovsepyan, Arzumanyan, Arakelyan, Artak Edigaryan; Mkrtchyan, Artur Edigaryan; Pachajyan, Mkhitaryan, Malakyan; Movsisyan. Subs: Manoyan for Artur Edigaryan (68 mins), Hambardzumyan for Artak Edigaryan (71 mins), Manucharyan for Malakyan (79 mins).

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Given; O’Shea , Dunne, St Ledger, Kilbane; Lawrence, Green, Whelan, McGeady; Doyle, Keane. Subs: Fahey for McGeady (68 mins), Keogh for Keane (85 mins).

Referee: Zsolt Szaba (Hun).