Republic of Ireland hold Denmark to high-pressure draw and set up grand occasion in Dublin World Cup play-off

Denmark 0 Republic of Ireland 0: The grand stakes of the occasion seemed to get to both sides, but the goalless draw at least leaves the second-leg tantalisingly open

The Republic of Ireland managed to keep Christian Eriksen quiet (Getty Images)

One of Ireland or Denmark are now a mere 90 minutes from the wonder of a World Cup after a long wait for both, but they are likely to make it feel a lot longer than that, if this 0-0 in Copenhagen is anything to go by.

The most generous thing you could say for them is that those very stakes understandably got to them, and conditioned this low-quality but high-pressure first leg. The worst is that the rest of the World Cup would really prefer if it these play-offs could conspire to knock both out, because there is so little life about either side bar long balls and set-pieces.

That will not matter to either manager or squad. All that matters will be getting to Russia, but the wonder from this first 90 minutes is how that is actually going to happen given the paucity of attacking quality or even chances - especially in a dismal second half.

That's also why it's even difficult to say whether this was a good draw for Ireland, since they don't have an away goal, or apparently much of a route to a home goal in the return on Tuesday.

Part of all that is of course because neither of these mid-sized nations really has great players in this generation, and that only makes the achievement of getting to a World Cup all the greater and gives it all the more meaning, having the inverse effect that it influences some nervy and one-dimensional football.

That really is not to be under-appreciated here, and should make some of this understandable.

It's game on when the two nations meet again next week (Getty Images)

The one exception is Christian Eriksen, but the problem Denmark have is trying to get him it involved; trying to free him to make the best of his quality. The inevitability that he will be the most marked player on the pitch often means the ball gets to him the least, so one solution was instead getting it back to Simon Kjaer to launch diagonal passes to try and force openings.

From there, it was almost pot luck whether those passes would be headed away by Shane Duffy, or have enough on them to create a bit of havoc.

One of them after just 11 minutes did create one of the most constructive pieces of play in the game. Kjaer found onrushing full-back Stryger Larsen, who teed it up for himself and volleyed a brilliant strike at Darren Randolph, only for the goalkeeper to surpass it with an even better double save to keep the out as well as Andreas Cornelius’ follow-up.

Randolph was a bit more culpable 22 minutes later when he parried a drive straight at Pione Sisto to somehow miss, but there was the caveat that it was an Eriksen strike, as one of those long passes eventually found its way to the playmaker’s feet.

Ireland should probably have been behind, but the fact they weren’t justified the gameplan to then, and began to embolden them. It particularly emboldened Cyrus Christie. As the Irish finally began to play a bit further up the field, the full-back got up to completely outstrip Larsen for pace before bringing an alert save from the previously untroubled Kasper Schmeichel.

Ireland will be more than happy with their point (AFP/Getty Images)

O’Neill’s singularly functional approach can be very frustrating, for Ireland’s own fans and best attackers as much as the opposition, but the truth is that is also what has made it fruitful. It is not an exaggeration to say the Irish gradually brought Denmark down to their level, and ground them down so their football was equally erratic.

It said much that, by the 60th minute, it was no longer Kjaer picking out long balls but Thomas Delaney hitting wayward passes to nowhere. Denmark had lost their structure, so manager Aage Hareide tried to win the game by just throwing on more strikers in Yussuf Poulsen and Nicklas Bendtner.

It didn’t have much effect other than one long shot from the former, although the 74th minute finally saw enough space free up behind so Eriksen could actually get on the ball in the type of dangerous position he would want. It was thereby no coincidence that there was at last a sharper pattern to Denmark’s attack, although it didn’t take long for the game to fall back into its own shabbier pattern.

Tottenham's Eriksen was unable to break the deadlock (Getty Images)

Attuned to this, O’Neill brought on a striker who has benefitted from such matches in the past, as Shane Long was introduced.

The issue was that he hadn’t scored at all in 29 games, and never looked like preventing that getting to 30 on this appearance. You would have felt many of the players on the pitch were suffering from the same kind of drought on this evidence, and it was no coincidence that the game evolved - or perhaps devolved - to the ball just being pummelled into the box. Duffy had a header saved at one end, Poulsen his own at the other.

There was to be no away goal, though, or any goal at all.

It merely sets up what could be a grand occasion in Dublin on Tuesday, as one of these sides pulls off a great achievement. The reasons why it would be so celebrated, though, are precisely what made this very far from a great match.