Darren Randolph says that restoring the Aviva Stadium to a home fortress can give Ireland a fighting chance of making it to the Euro 2020 finals.
Georgia, who were unlucky to only earn a draw when the sides last met 18 months ago in Tbilisi, will be the first test of that aspiration tonight.
Ireland's home form deserted them in the desperate last times of Martin O'Neill's reign - they have only beaten Moldova and the USA at the Lansdowne Road venue since the summer of 2017.
Wild speculation of tennis ball throwing from the stands in protest against the FAI aside, the Republic can expect a warmer welcome for Mick McCarthy's first game in Dublin on his return to the dugout than would have been the case had Randolph not pulled off a spectacular save in Gibraltar last Saturday.
"I knew any game you play against any team, there's always a chance they will have chances," he said.
"We looked at their set pieces and long throws, they have decent deliveries from set-pieces so there was always the chances that the longer it stayed 0-0, they were going to sit back and try and catch you on the counter attack.
"They’ll always have a chance. I was ready when needed."
Three points bagged, Ireland need to double that total tonight and Randolph has appealed to home supporters to get behind their team.
"We need support to get off to a good start in the group," he stated.
"It would give us a platform, something to build on. It would be a lot easier to go and play if the Aviva is rocking, if there is an unbelievable atmosphere.
“Ideally we’d love that to be the case, where teams would hate coming here.
“But we have beaten some of the top teams here.
“Nights like Germany are brilliant, but they don’t come around too often.
“We would love them to come around every home game.
“I agree if we were able to turn the Aviva into a fortress, to make it a difficult place for teams to come to, it would obviously help us and go in our favour".
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