Peter Mc Laughlin

Republic of Ireland football team manager Heimir Hallgrímsson has said that the players now pray together before games, led by Catholic player Conor Coventry, whom they have nicknamed 'Brother Coventry': 'One change is that we do a little prayer with the players and the staff just to cool our heads before we go on. We call Conor Coventry 'Brother Coventry' now in the squad. It’s good when you go into a high intensity game. It's good to start the game with cool heads, instead of shouting and screaming at each other. We try to cool the players down'