REPUBLIC OF IRELAND v MONTENEGRO:IT IS 99 games now and heading for 14 years since Shay Given prepared to line out for the Irish senior team for the first time. His family had travelled down from Donegal and the goalkeeper remembers being nervous ahead of what was "a momentous occasion for me and my family".

There might just be a few butterflies tonight, too, as the now 33-year-old leads his country out ahead of appearance number 100 with his two kids, Shayne and Sienna, there to see their father play in a Republic of Ireland jersey for the first time.

Roy Keane getting sent off against Russia, in what was Mick McCarthy’s first game as manager, that spring evening back in March 1996 diverted attention from the young goalkeeper’s debut and even he doesn’t dwell on the game particularly. Asked about which of his outings stand out when he casts an eye back on his career at this level, his focus is clear: the tail end of the 2002 qualifying campaign, when his contribution proved vital in the pivotal home win over the Netherlands and then the play-offs against Iran.

“The Holland game in 2001 was special and then the two games against Iran,” he says. “I think their manager was quoted as saying that he would hang himself from the crossbar if they didn’t win.”

He smiles at the thought of such foolishness and then shrugs it off, adding: “To actually go to the World Cup as a player was something very special.”

In terms of saves, he recalls one in the second half against Iran in Dublin. “It was important to keep a clean sheet at home,” he says and Given, in fact, kept the visitors scoreless not once but twice in the space of a couple of minutes with Ali Karimi’s poor touch the first time allowing the goalkeeper to gather bravely at his feet. Moments later, though, the same player made no mistake to help him out, his shot was goal bound until the Irishman intervened quite brilliantly to push it around the post.

The young Given, though, must be linked at least as strongly in the minds of the supporters who were around to see the side with the images of him leaving the pitch four years earlier in Brussels where a 2-1 defeat had cost Ireland a place at France ’98.

“Yeah,” he acknowledges, “I’ve been in the play-offs before. We’ve lost one and won one. I know which feeling I prefer.”

The adventure of his one trip to a finals tournament, Japan and Korea, back in 2002 remains, he says, “the highlight of my career. We (the current squad) would love to get to another World Cup. We don’t fear anyone, though. We played the world champions on Saturday and we almost won the game.”

He is asked, in the wake of Stephen Hunt’s comments, about Eamon Dunphy’s “shameful” verdict on Saturday’s performance. “No,” he says quietly, “the only thing I would say is that it was a real kick in the teeth to concede in the last minute. We need to be more professional. But shameful is not the word I would use.

“Before a ball was kicked we would have been delighted to have been in a situation where we don’t even need a point from the last game. We’ve qualified for the play-offs. We have to take the positives from what we’ve done in the campaign so far and try and finish the group off with a victory that would set us up for the play-offs.

“What we have is a small country with a small group of players to pick from and the manager deserves credit for bringing these players in and getting them settled so well in a successful team. He deserves credit but,” concludes the man with as close to a universal approval rating as it seems possible to get in the game, “you can’t please everyone.”