ROBBIE BRADY HOPES his new shirt number in the international team will help spur him on to become one of Ireland’s greatest players.

With record goalscorer Robbie Keane retiring recently, the number ten jersey needed to be filled and fellow Dubliner Brady jumped at the chance to wear it.

“It’s a massive honour,” Brady said after last night’s 2-2 draw with Serbia. “It just opened up and became available and I fancied it. I want to do well and I wanted to wear it.

I just sent Robbie a little text and said I’d try not do too much damage to it. He said ‘don’t worry, you only need to score 69 goals.

“But he’s happy I have it and congratulated me on it. I’m hoping to go from strength to strength and put in some more good performances for Ireland.”

Ireland come away from Belgrade with a point that they will be thankful to get after falling 2-1 down at the Red Star Stadium.

And Brady, who contributed to both Ireland goals with his set-piece deliveries, says there is no great shame in settling for a draw with last night’s opponents.

“I think it was a deserved point,” he added. “It was a difficult night and we knew it would be.

“There were circumstances tonight with the pitch and the rain — yesterday I went for a walk and it was roasting hot!

“So we all got a bit of a shock today when we open the curtains and it was lashing out.

Then there was talk of pitch inspections and that. We trained on it yesterday and it was cutting up. So we knew it was going to be night and it wouldn’t be a night to be playing football.

We stuck at it when they went 2-1 up and to pull a goal back showed a bit of character from us.

“It’s a good point away from home and I don’t think many people are going to enjoy coming here. For us to get a point and move on is okay in my eyes.”

The42 is on Snapchat! Tap the button below on your phone to add!

Here’s how we rated the Irish players in tonight’s World Cup qualifier

‘These boys play in big, big leagues’ – O’Neill defends Ireland’s performance