McClean: Roy would kill me if i missed

James McClean admitted he feared a Roy Keane backlash had he missed his chance against Austria after Ireland’s famous 1-0 win in Vienna.

McClean, who was played in after a superb ball from Wes Hoolahan, showed great composer to finish past the helpless Ramazan Oezcan in the 49^th minute to hand Ireland their first ever win in Austria.

The hosts struggled to create any clear-cut chances throughout, although they could have snatched a point in the 90^th minute after Marc Janko could not direct his header on target from close-range.

Ireland now sit top of group D, and have opened up a six-point gap between former group favourites Austria, whose chances of qualifying took a massive hit and they now need to produce a huge turn-around if they want to be on the plane to Russia.

"It's huge. There are no world class teams in this group, we will all take points off each other so to win in Austria is no easy feat. We are delighted." McClean told the BBC.

"Hopefully that gives us a platform to believe that we can win this group. We have got momentum; we are top of the group so we are delighted.

"Roy Keane hammers us in training about always hitting the target so that is all I was thinking about when I was running through. If I'd missed, he would have killed me."

Ireland will look to continue their superb start in the qualifying campaign when they host Wales at the Aviva on the 24th of March, while Austria will look to get back on track when they host Moldova on the same date.

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