Not a raucous , rip-roaring night but one that rose above the limitations of the genre. End of season friendlies can be flat affairs but this at least was leavened by the sight of Brian Kerr saying hello to the terraces he stood on for so many games and by his proteges putting on a little show for him.

A single goal victory within hours of Georgia achieving a similar result over Russia in Tbilisi. Kerr was spoiled perhaps for reasons to be cheerful. He came to the little bandroom where so many managers have played their tunes. Every note was a grace note.

"When I came into this job first I said I thought that perhaps it wasn't all over in the Group. I think there was a feeling then that Russia and Switzerland were going to run away with it. I'd say back then that I was aware of Albania's potential and that's been proved but now Georgia have done their stuff. I'd say the Swiss are the main beneficiaries today but it's a good result. It's back in our own hands in relation to second place."

From the media as Mick McCarthy would have advised there is always the bitter word. "But we're last in the Group still Brian" "Last?" "well second last on goal difference." "Exactly! Don't be exaggerating. Things are bad but they're not that bad."

So to the business of the evening. Asked which of the days single goal thrillers had given him the most pleasure he opted of course for the 90 minutes he'd just put down at Lansdowne Road, the game he'd had control of , the outcome he'd had the chance to influence. "I thought we performed well," he said.

Kerr's has been a conservative revolution, a quiet and necessary edging away form the old certainties and orthodoxies. Nothing has been purged. A lifetime spent in a laboratory somewhere in academia has inculcated hard habits. Kerr holds everything up to the light and examines it before deciding its worth. In the good old days he liked 4-3-1-2 as a system but with the national team in his grasp he bided his time before he tried it. Had he liked what he'd seen.

Instant caginess.

"Well in general the formations have been 4-4-2 for years now and I just wanted to do something that we've used at under-age level at times depending on the opposition, It doesn't mean. I'll play it again next match. I may go back to 4-4-2 I'll see.

The players. You could feel their zest. There's an sentimental ideal about teaching which makes it more than a job. Thinks of Joseph Cotton in Goodbye Mr Chips or Robin williams in the Dead Poets Society. Kerr's graduates are different in so far as they don't leave and enter the real world, they move on and become millionaire citizens of the fantasy kingdom.

They bring a little of Brian Kerr with them, however, an abiding affection and respect. You could see it written in passage of play when the Norwegians looked alternately dazzled and puzzled by the eagerness of certain green shirts.

Damien Duff departed the pitch in the 74th minute the waves of applause breaking over his head and a warm embrace from his old mentor awaiting him on the sideline. When he went the evening dimmed. There was nothing whatever wrong with Duff's response to Mick McCarthy but already it seems that Kerr can extract more from him.

Once famously Kerr concluded a lengthy dressingroom talk by telling Duff, the youngest player in the room, that none of what he'd said applied to him. "Just go out and enjoy yourself. And Duffer we all love you."

That affection, that tie was evident last night. Duff and Robbie Keane the cum laude graduates from the old days gave far more than end of season friendly matches usually merit.

Richard Dunne wasn't far behind in his eagerness to please. Duff and Keane danced and jigged and emptied their pockets out to show every trick they know. "He (Duff) was very good." conceded Kerr.

And the prodigal Richard Dunne? "Richard played very well. I thought he was a little hard done by  not getting man-of-the-match."

He speaks on. Nuts and bolts. Brass tacks. The team was compact and neat. Players kept it going and understood their roles.

For some it was a step up from Division One football but they slotted in. Right-footed left backs (Steve Finnan) are no big deal.

"It was important. It builds enthusiasm in the team, the crowd, the media. It helps us sell out for the next two games which are important. I hope it's part of building for those games against Georgia and Albania. "

So 32,643 were there to see the era begin. A fair few ordinary shammers as Kerr might say. His sole concession to sentiment was a quick wave to the crowd when the tannoy promoted it and a quick duck back into the dugout. You could tell that it mattered though and the result mattered.

Four played, three won , one drawn and good news from Tbilisi.

Back in the lab he could never have thought that sweet dreams would taste like this.