It was a match in which all eyes were trained on familiar faces returning to a spiritual home. Aiden McGeady received the wholly theatrical abuse we all expected.

Martin O'Neill banished all those distasteful memories of white sports socks tucked into tracksuit bottoms by turning up in the kind of suit you would wear proudly to your sister's wedding and Roy Keane, predictably, got in on the act when the referee, Milorad Mazic, felt compelled to chastise him for getting a little too animated in the technical area.

Mercifully, he didn't ask him to sign a copy of his autobiography.

Shaun Maloney's return went largely unreported. More fool us.

He spent more than a decade of his career at Celtic Park. There were few goals in his two successful spells there, though, to match last night's effort in terms of sheer importance and absolute, unadulterated brilliance. Such was the sense of exhilaration and relief when his right-footed pearler curled just inside David Forde's left-hand post that the goading of McGeady, fun as it had been, really did become an irrelevant sideshow.

Hopes of a first major finals since 1998 remain alive and well. Scotland dug out a result when they needed it. That is all that matters in the end, but, for the punters who packed into Parkhead last night, sending McGeady away with his tail firmly between his legs was a bonus.

McGeady's first visit to this stadium that has shaped his life came in July 1993, aged seven, for a friendly against Sheffield Wednesday. He stood in the Jungle that afternoon with his dad, John.

Starting the match on the touchline in front of where that legendary stretch of terracing once existed, this could hardly have been the stuff of his youthful fantasies. Less than a minute into the game, having failed to get as much as a sniff of the ball, he was given a very clear taster of what lay in store.

The visiting supporters, at least those who had bought their tickets through the official channels and sat where they were supposed to, decided to show a little solidarity in difficult circumstances by chanting his name. They had barely reached the fifth and final syllable before being drowned out by howls from every other section of the stadium.

Whenever McGeady came anywhere close to the action, he got dog's abuse. Anything else would have been a terrible disappointment.

"Aiden McGeady. Yer a w*****, yer a w*****". It was, indeed, a throwback to the days when we all stood on the terraces with our elders and watched the more effusive gentlemen around us pick on the wee winger unfortunate enough to be running the line in front of them.

McGeady became involved in a quick spot of interplay after 70 seconds. He was jeered. With

six minutes on the clock, there was a roar as Andy Robertson - a fellow old boy from St Ninian's High School in Giffnock - came off best from a 50-50 challenge with him inside

the Scotland half. The abuse reached new levels when McGeady showed the audacity to track back and try to regain possession. That was, most certainly, not part of his role for the evening.

Panto villains must do what is expected of them and the Everton attacker duly obliged less than 10 minutes later when collecting a yellow card for what appeared to be a quite unpleasant foul on Steven Fletcher.

There were no signs of the trouble foolishly predicted by the Football Association of Ireland's comical chief executive, John Delaney.

There never was going to be trouble.

Indeed, so eager were the Scotland fans simply to let loose with the catcalls that we had a rather amusing case of mistaken identity early in the first half. Shane Long showed little appetite to drift right from his central position and look for the ball after his first sortie towards the byeline ended up with him getting it in the neck.

The Irish retaliated by dishing out a bit of stick to Steven Naismith. We may never know whether this was connected to deeply ingrained anti-Scottish, anti-Rangers or anti-Stewarton attitudes within their culture. Chances are, rather like McGeady, it was primarily because he is such an annoyingly talented little so-and-so to have in the opposing team.

McGeady was largely anonymous during the first half. Less so in the second, where he made it clear early on that he was feeling far from vulnerable.

A decent cross from the flank resulted in a Jon Walters header being deflected over and a left-footed snapshot just before the hour almost made time stand still when hitting off a dark blue jersey and looping wide of David Marshall's left-hand post.

McGeady had spoken at length in the official match programme about his affinity with Parkhead.

"The happiest days of my footballing life were spent at Celtic Park," he said. "I have had great moments in football, bad moments in football, but I always have good memories when I think about Celtic Park."

No longer. A former club-mate backed by the cries of more than 50,000 Scots made sure of that.