Dara O'Shea: We want to write our own history

Dara O'Shea says the Republic of Ireland are ready to embrace the challenge of taking on France as they look to "write their own history" at Lansdowne Road.

The last major scalp Ireland took in a qualifier was Germany back in 2015, when Shane Long's famous goal sank the then world No 1-ranked team.

It will arguably take an even better performance from Stephen Kenny's men to shock a French side teeming with elite players, not least superstar attacker Kylian Mbappe.

But West Brom centre-back O'Shea is treating the visit of the beaten World Cup finalists as an opportunity for a new generation of Irish players to spark national fervour with a seismic victory.

"It's something I relish," he said at Abbotstown on Friday. "As a young lad coming up, you want to play against the best to try and be the best, so when you get opportunities like this and nights like this you want to be a part of it, you want to be playing against them and seeing where you are.

"These are the nights we want to have as a group. We've watched back those night as fans. Some of the lads have played in those and can show their expertise and knowledge and share that with us, but, yeah, we want to write our own history. We want to go out and put a good performance in and do the country proud."

Key to pulling it off will be stopping the prodigiously brilliant Mbappe. Ireland leaked two goals against Latvia on Wednesday night; if they are guilty of similar slackness on Monday things could get ugly.

However O'Shea is confident they are capable of stifling France's lethal attack.

"These are the best players in the world," he added.

"We can't really let up. There's no room for error in these situations so we have to give it our best. We're all good players at the end of