There's more a hint of the Stephen Merchants about Richard Keogh. If the comedian's trademark expression is pleasant surprise, though, the Republic of Ireland centre-half seems to look out at the world in a permanent state of wide-eyed wonder.

With others injured, the 29-year-old was a key figure for Ireland over the last week and with John O’Shea already ruled out for the first playoff leg, he seems likely to have a significant part to play in mid-November too.

He sounds calm, even he looks a little astonished by it all.

Like everyone else, he looked to be on the ropes a little at times against the Poles but it was Keogh, as it happens, who came closest of anyone for Ireland to grabbing the second -half equaliser that would have put the team back on course for automatic qualification.

Up there

“Yeah, I thought I’d take a chance and stay up there,” he says of the incident which started with a

Robbie Brady

corner from the left but then continued when Aiden McGeady worked the ball back in from the other flank.

“Aido did a bit of magic and it came to me. I just wanted to make sure it hit the target. The keeper has made a good save but I think I should have scored. On another day it might have gone in. It was a bit unlucky.”

So too were Ireland, he reckons, although his assertion that the Poles took their “only two chances” of the game is slightly at odds with the statistics produced over the course of the night by more dispassionate observers.

The important thing, he insists regardless, is that the group looks forward to next month’s crucial two games with confidence, something the Derby County defender believes they are entitled to do now despite the frustration of Warsaw.

“It is disappointing for sure,” he says. “I don’t think they were better than us but they got the result and we didn’t. Now, we have to dust ourselves down and wait for the draw, we’ve still got another chance. We’ll take that, I think. I’ve got every confidence in this group of boys that they have what it takes to do the business.”

O’Neill, he continues, expressed his pride after the game on Sunday at what had been achieved over the last couple of months and there’s a suggestion of particular a desire within the dressing room to make those who thought the qualification game was effectively up back in June eat their words.

“A lot of people wrote us off,” he says, “so to even get third and give ourselves a chance . . . we deserve a lot of credit. We showed great determination. No one fancied us against Germany and nobody fancied us here. But we’ll go into the playoffs full of confidence; we’ll keep on looking to November

“I think we’ve shown we’re as good as anybody. To take four points off Germany shows what we’re capable of. Our group was the hardest out of anybody’s so to finish third is no disgrace. To take it to the last day and nearly qualify was a great effort. I wouldn’t want to play us now. This group of boys . . . we’re all in it together.”