Yesterday a survey revealed that the appointment of Roy Keane and Martin O'Neill was the most memorable sporting moment of the year ahead of moments of magic such as Shane O'Donnell's All Ireland hurling final hat-trick for Clare and Simon Zebo's backheel flick against Wales.

Ireland manager O'Neill sat down with Ger earlier and admitted that he was "taken aback" by the reaction from the public.

"It becomes very high expectation and I hope I'm able to live up to that. I've told you before, my defense mechanism is that if anything goes wrong, I blame Roy Keane," he joked.

He confessed that he is still getting to grips with the distinct rhythm of international football management after a busy career at club level.

"The very obvious one is day-to -day involvement with players. I felt that we had full on commitment from everyone for the Latvia game at home and the Poland game. We arrived back in Dublin at 4am after the Poland game and then have breakfast with the players. Then you're saying cheerio to them and the next time that you actually see them collectively will be sometime in March. That takes a bit of getting used to. I had withdrawal symptoms from that, I felt. But you get over it and you get out and start watching a lot of games and it suddenly becomes alive to you." 

O'Neill added that the Euro 2016 qualifier draw in February will also help focus the mind as it sets tangible targets to aim towards.

Listen to the full interview via the Off The Ball Football Show podcast. 

Main image by ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy