Ireland beat the World Cup-bound Qataris 1-0 in Dublin<\/a>, and he had no regrets over his disrupted summer plans.<\/p>\nHe said: “I was actually on holiday Sunday night when the gaffer rang me to come in Monday. I’d only landed about an hour and just went out for dinner, and I had a nice call from the gaffer.<\/p>\n
“Once I spoke to him – we have a great relationship, he’s brought me in loads of times before – it was a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
“I won’t not come in unless my leg is hanging off, so it was a quick turnaround. I had other holidays planned this week – my girlfriend actually travelled to Nashville today on her own with two of our mates, so she was trying to get Wi-Fi on the plane to watch it today.<\/p>\n
“You have 30 years when you retire to go on holiday. I’m just delighted to get the nod.”<\/p>\n
McGrath more than played his part as Ireland extended their recent run of good form, with the only defeat in their last seven games coming on penalties after March’s 2-2 World Cup play-off semi-final draw with the Czech Republic in Prague.<\/p>\n
They were quicker out of the blocks on Thursday and took a fifth-minute lead through skipper Nathan Collins’ deft header, although their momentum was disrupted when Lincoln frontman Jack Moylan, who had provided the cross for his captain during an impressive 45-minute display, was shown a straight red card for a challenge on Jassem Gaber.<\/p>\n
Hallgrimsson insisted referee Jamie Robinson, who also dismissed Qatar substitute Almoez Ali, had got it wrong on a night when VAR was not in operation, and McGrath was in complete agreement.<\/p>\n
He said: “He didn’t deserve that red. If there’s VAR, there’s no chance. It’s probably a soft free-kick at best.”<\/p>\n
The game was played against the backdrop of mounting controversy over Ireland’s forthcoming Nations League fixtures against Israel, with the game scheduled for October 4 in Dublin a particular focus, and protesters hurled tennis balls bearing the message “stop the game” onto the pitch on several occasions during the first half.<\/p>\n
Veteran defender Seamus Coleman had expressed concern that Hallgrimsson and his players have been left in the firing line by those above them, and McGrath admitted the situation is difficult.<\/p>\n
He said: “Seamus spoke really well about it the other day. We all don’t agree with what’s going on. Ideally it’s not in our hands.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a nice situation to be put into. Like I said, personally, none of us agree with what’s going on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jamie McGrath had no qualms about shelving his holiday plans after being asked to answer the Republic of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-472800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}