Sheffield United defender John Egan says first Republic of Ireland goal "one of proudest moments of career"

Egan's first-half header had taken Ireland to within a minute of arguably the biggest victory in their history at the Estadio Algarve on Wednesday evening when Ronaldo, who had earlier seen his penalty saved by Gavin Bazunu, levelled and then won the game deep into stoppage time.

Defeat in Faro means Stephen Kenny's men are still to collect a single point three games into the campaign and they return to action on Saturday against Azerbaijan, with Serbia visiting Dublin three days later.

Egan reacts after first Ireland goal is overshadowed by Ronaldo

Egan said: "We've got another game. It's a quick turn-around and we have to dust ourselves off quickly and we have to build on this.

"We didn't get the result, which is obviously gutting with how the game went, but we can keep building, we can keep improving and I'm sure there is a lot more to come from us."

Egan netted his first international goal in the dying moments of the first half when he ran across his marker and headed home from a left-wing corner, before Ronaldo’s late magic prevented it from being a winning intervention.

"It was a really proud moment, in front of my family as well,” Egan added.

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"They managed to get in; my mum, sister and fiancee. It was funny, really, I saw my mum as soon as I scored.

"It’s a country we came to a lot as a kid and to score my first international goal here is one of the proudest moments of my life.

"We’ve left ourselves a mountain to climb in the group but we can only look to the next game, we’ll go again and look forward to Saturday.

"We played really well, it's really hard to take, but we just have to take the positives from it. We came away to a world-class team who were European champions not so long ago, who have some world-class players, and put in a really good performance. There are a lot of positives to take."

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