Tom Humphries/Manager's reaction: He's washed out and worn and falling back on his native gruffness. This whole adventure has too much romance, too much swashbuckling in it for him. Mick McCarthy learned a long time ago that every silver lining has a cloud, so he looks out on the sunny delirium, narrows his eyes and decides he'll bring his brolly just in case.

"Well, it's fine when you come like this and you have results like the two we've had," he says, "but I wonder what the reaction would be if we were beaten one nil in both games. I'm a bit perverse maybe, but I wonder about that. What would be said about my players then? Thankfully we haven't lost."

He's sitting on a high stool in the media area with a microphone in his hand and he looks like a nightclub crooner when he goes to speak. He's keeping his head though. Happy yes, but he's keeping his shilling in his hand till he gets his toffee, thanks very much.

"Is this the best? I enjoyed Holland. I enjoyed Tehran. I'm lucky I've had lots of good nights. It's always the most recent one I suppose that you enjoy the most.

"We would have taken two draws when we set off. I think they are two terrific results. I've said though, let's finish the job now, let's go and beat the Saudis."

He faces out to a sea of doubters, an army of hacks who didn't see what he saw with 20 or so minutes left when big Niall Quinn got up off the bench, shook his old bones and headed into the fray.

"Did I see us getting a goal? Well, the way we'd played and the way we'd gone at them, yes. Apparently my reaction on television wasn't the quickest, but then I never was the quickest. I thought it had come back off the post, it had come out.

"I put Quinny on to do what he did. He caused them problems. They fouled him a few times because he's a big guy and he used his height and his presence. It was a lovely little flick he got and that's what we wanted him on for. We'd discussed it at half-time, what we wanted him for and he went on and he did it. The will of the wisp Robbie Keane was in on it. Good goal."

And just in time too. It would be nice someday to execute these plans before we have conceded a goal. Just so that we don't all die young and of stress-related ailments.

"When it went in I think it was a fitting reward." says Mick, who seems greyer than he did three weeks ago. "I thought we played very well in the first half, we took the game to them. I think they felt that they had got the result in the end. We had been pressing them. I changed the team, I said at half-time that if I needed a goal with 20 minutes to go I was going to go three-four-three. We might as well get beaten by three as by one if we weren't going to have a go at it. I put Quinny on and it worked."

In the mixed zone there is no arguing with the Irish manager's tactical acuity. Time and again in this campaign he has proved that he is masterful at everything except taking a compliment.

"Changes are great, aren't they, if they work. I could be a complete flute sitting here if they'd gone wrong. You'd say, 'hey, we were doing well at four-four-two, you should have left it, you shouldn't have gone three-four-three'. It's just the fickle nature of football. I said at half-time what I wanted to do and I had that plan in my head. Isn't it nice when it works. It's the difference between being a buffoon or a wonderful, tactically astute coach."

In these delirious moments we want to assure Mick that we are the buffoons, we are the complete flutes, but the moment doesn't seem right. Something about his demeanour suggests he knows it already. We ask personnel questions, trying not to appear too flutey.

"I thought Breeny was immense," he says, "and Steve Staunton. I thought in the first half on Saturday that was a problem area for us, but look at how they improved? Shows what good players they are. And Quinny, we were chasing it when he came on. In both games we've played well. I know Rudi said we played well. That's praise indeed. We had the better of the game. They had some chances when we were chasing. I said Robbie and Damien could explode on this World Cup. I think they have."

At half-time there were precious few takers for the storyline that unfolded, or even the scoreline that unfolded, but McCarthy, as managers must, had found the reasons to be cheerful.

"Well, I thought the start of the first half was tough because we conceded a goal, but for the last 25 minutes were were considerably the better side. That continued in the second half. I made a change. We threw men forward. It paid off. With this Irish team you know what you get. Work-rate. Commitment. Desire. Passion. We have good players as well."

And in that chaotic, half-time dressing- room, with everybody shouting and pumping each other up, what were his final thoughts, what summed up his message? Simple really. He asked them not to forget to score.

"I said don't play Germany off the park and come off losing 1-0. I thought we were the better side. I said we'd been the better side and come off and have a result. We close down, we work hard for each other. I said come off with something. Don't pass them off the field and lose."

And he speaks about his boys, about how everyone chipped in to buy Steve Staunton a watch and how young Steven Reid, the baby of the party, was entrusted with the job of making the presentation and a brief speech.

They've knit together tightly, closed hard around the wounds of Saipan. Mick McCarthy, on the back of two extraordinary achievements, has some of the old nettle back in him and we'll be feeling its sting for a while yet.