It will be great to see McGeady and McCarthy to ram it right up the Scotch bigots. Martin O'Neill 23 FEBRUARY 2014 For the second qualifying campaign in succession, Ireland will face European giants Germany as they bid to qualify for a major tournament under Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane. Ireland will compete in Group D with Germany, Poland, Georgia, Scotland and Gibraltar. Germany trashed Ireland 6-1 at the Aviva and easily beat the boys in green led by Noel King last October 3-0 on their way to qualify for this year's world cup. The last time Ireland were involved in a group containing Scotland, they qualified for Euro 88 but Gordon Strachan's men will be hoping to qualify at our expense this time around. Poland will be familiar rivals for Ireland with Martin O'Neill's charges having already drawn with them 0-0 last November. Ireland beat Georgia on the both occasions we faced them in qualification for the 2010 World Cup but they proved difficult rivals. Robbie Keane scored a hat-trick when we beat the Georgians 4-0 in a friendly last year. Gibraltar will be an unknown quantity in their first qualifying campaign but will be expected to prop up the group. Following the draw, Martin O'Neill said: "It's a difficult group but an exciting one and the games against Scotland will be a great occasion" He suggested that Germany would qualify, but told Sky Sports that âIt looks like a group, Germany apart, where teams might be able to take points off each other.â O'Neill added: "They will be great occasions I hope. I'm sure he (Strachan) is looking forward to it. I'm sure he'll be as excited as I am myself. It's tough, I'm there's other groups we might have preferred to be in but we'll get on with it. "Germany you would say are the outstanding side in the group but there's plenty to fight for." Strachan added: "The commercial manager is happy. Every tie, there's something in it. You've got Gibraltar, new to the competition; Germany, one of the best teams in the world; the Republic of Ireland; Poland, who we play in a friendly - we've just decided to knock that one on the head and the backroom staff are just going to play their backroom staff. "It is exciting. There's some groups you might call mundane but we're definitely in an exciting group. It's a terrific, terrific draw." READ MORE
