"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">Last night in Paris, Ireland played France in the 2nd leg of their World Cup playoff match. France had won the first leg 1-0 at Croke Park and it was going to take a lot for Ireland to come back. Ireland set their team up exactly the same way with the same starting XI and France had one change with Escude coming in for the injured Abidal (not that he lasted long before getting injured himself!). France played in the same World Cup kits they did on Saturday, whereas Ireland were wearing their away top.

Ireland played much better last night than they did in the 1st leg, possibly because they learned from their mistakes on Saturday and maybe because they knew they had to go for it. France seemed surprised at how well Ireland were playing and struggled throughout the first half. It really was just a matter of time before Ireland took the lead and they did so in the 32nd minute, with a goal from Robbie Keane. Those playing in a France World Cup home jersey were stunned by this and were really struggling to create chances. On the other hand, Ireland did create a few, with one for Damien Duff, one for John O’Shea and a couple of other chances for Robbie Keane. This brought the game to extra time and it was anyone’s game at this point.

Then came the incident everyone has been talking about today and will do so for the next while, no doubt. France scored in the 103rd minute after Thierry Henry had kept the ball in play twice with his hand, before directing the ball with his foot to the head of William Gallas, who scored the goal that put France through to the World Cup finals. Now, everyone knows that Henry cheated and he’ll get abuse for quite some time over this, however, the referee or linesman should have definitely spotted it, so they will ultimately take the brunt of this decision. It was really unfortunate that a fantastic match was ruined by this incident, but that’s exactly what has happened and although there are talks of Ireland appealing for the game to be replayed, it will never happen. France will count themselves extremely lucky, with Ireland being so close to making it to South Africa.

Written by Stephen Whiteford, a sports writer who blogs about the 2010 World Cup.

PS. I totally forgot to mention the penalty incident, which I do feel the referee got wrong. If he had given the penalty, Shay Given would most likely have been red carded. Not many people are talking about this decision (even I forgot to put it in here!), but maybe they should.