Harry Arter happy with performance, happy the pressure is on

Everyone else can get excited about the Euros now. Everyone but the talented young Irish midfielders, and Darron Gibson, can start to dream but the boys that could become household names this summer and forever more could also fail to make the plane to Paris.

Harry Arter went a long way to securing a place in Martin O'Neill's 23-man squad that must be submitted to Uefa by 11pm Tuesday night.

The Irish squad will be down in Cork having played Belarus at Turner’s Cross.

“I’m happy with how I done,” said Arter after being named man of the match following this 1-1 draw with the Netherlands. “I did my best. That’s all you can do.

“I feel like that’s good pressure,” Arter added. “I see that as a challenge.”

Other were not so fortunate. Like Stephen Quinn, who struggled early on in possession and with his delivery, or Eunan O'Kane, who came on late only to swipe at a shot on goal with his weaker leg foot.

“I snatched at it a little bit,” said O’Kane. “Fell a little bit behind me so just had a swing at it. If it fell on my right foot I’d have put money on myself.

“I imagine you lads were writing headlines before I hit it.”

O'Kane knows he needs more minutes in Tuesday's run out to avoid being categorised with Gary Waddock or others who agonisingly missed the chance to travel to a major tournament.

“I hoped to have more chances than that,” the Derry native admitted.

“It’s very difficult coming into a game like that, difficult to get up to speed.

“But we are at the business end of things now. You don’t get to this point without being able to handle pressure before. There is a huge amount of pressure on people now to lay down a marker, to get a seat on that plane.

“But I think it is something as footballers we have become accustomed to. If you can’t handle that pressure as footballers there is no need to be here.

“The last performance before this trip I think I did really well. I’d feel a bit hard done by if all I get in these games is 10 minutes. All I want is as many minutes as I can get. Hopefully I will get that on Tuesday.”

High stakes for a few then. For the rest they played with a refreshing swagger in the face of the unqualified Dutch. And despite the late goal by Luuk De Jong, Ireland looked the better side.

“I think we got a self belief within our squad but we have some very good players now,” O’Kane continued. “We don’t go into games fearing anyone. We wanted to win the game tonight, not just go out and play, it was go win the game and keep the momentum going.

“We are very confident in ourselves that we can go out and win games. You could see that in the first hour.

“I’m just glad (O’Neill) has left naming the squad until Tuesday. Others who done well tonight would like it to be in the morning. I’m glad it is Tuesday.”