Darren Randolph was the player nearest the supporters' 33rd minute tennis ball protest against the FAI on Tuesday night.
He was best equipped to deal with any that got too close - after all, stopping shots is his profession.
"There were a couple of them right behind me when I turned around," laughed the Ireland goalkeeper.
"We got a heads up - I got a heads up on Monday that it might happen. I didn’t know whether it would be the start of the game or the end - but I was prepared.
"I don’t know if it was distracting but there was obviously a break in play and it was a long break.
"It’s not as if the fans were protesting against the players or the team so who knows what would have happened if it hadn’t gone in, but thankfully it did."
The focus quickly shifted to celebration with Conor Hourihane's magnificent free-kick winner.
And a positive Ireland did enough to deserve their second win to put them top of Group D.
The satisfaction was only added to in the dressing-room when the players heard the news that Denmark had staged a remarkable comeback to draw 3-3 in Switzerald, in the group's other game.
"It was brilliant," Randolph said. "Obviously everyone was already on top of the world when we came back into the dressing room, and then to hear the other result... Everyone goes up back to their club now but we’ll be looking forward now to the training camp before the games in the summer. The aim then is to win those games and push on again.
"It’s what we wanted. We were looking at these two games beforehand and we knew they were two winnable games.
"It wasn’t going to be easy heading over to Gibraltar and then Georgia here a couple of days later, but we knew what we wanted to do.
"I think the manager might have admitted that he would have wanted more time with us but considering we’ve only been together for what, 10 days now, to get those two results has been brilliant."
A trip to Denmark awaits in June and there's more confidence flowing through the squad now.
It's a world away from their last visit last November and the end game of Martin O'Neill's reign.
"There’s no reason why we shouldn’t go there off the back of two wins," Randolph said. "We’ll go there and give them a game like we tried to do before".
