Martin O'Neill admits World Cup qualification would be 'something else' and beat the achievement of Euro 2016

The Republic of Ireland reached Euro 2016 but were knocked out to France

Denmark stand in Ireland's way of next year's World Cup (Getty)

Ireland manager Martin O’Neill says that qualifying for the World Cup would be “something else”, and supersede the achievement of reaching the European Championships last year.

The Irish face Denmark in their play-off first leg for Russia 2018 on Saturday night in Copenhagen, before the return in Dublin on Tuesday, and could yet reach consecutive international tournaments for the first time since 1988-90.

Ireland got to the last 16 of Euro 2016, but O’Neill noted the special nature of the World Cup.

“It's a great game for us, obviously the same with Denmark as well too but as far we are concerned, qualifying for the Euros was a great achievement for us,” he said in Copenhagen on Friday. “I thought some of the performances were great, the young man beside me [Robbie Brady] forged a great reputation by playing brilliantly.

“The World Cup is something else too and if we could make it, it would be fantastic. Our opponents obviously feel the same.

“Generally, we have been up against it most of the time in last couple of years. The Euros group was a pretty difficult one and we managed to come through that through the play-offs.

“This was even more difficult because only the top side would go through automatically. We were fourth seed, but we have managed to make it so far and we have had some big battles.

Ireland were sent packing from Euro 2016 at the quarter-final stage (Getty)

“We had to win in Wales – we had to win the last two games to manage that, and we take our position here on merit, that’s the point, so we have got to go again.

“I don’t think for one minute, in all seriousness, the players think that this game is anything but difficult, of course it is, really difficult.

“They’ve [Denmark] got some excellent players who can cause a lot of problems - Eriksen has been playing fantastic football now for maybe 16 months, but he's not only Danish player who can play.

“They have got some really good players – but so have we. We are going to try to play to our strengths – we are going to try to play strongly, we're going to have to be able to defend properly when it comes to it and we are going to have to take our chances.

“That's what we are going to have to do and over the two legs, we will give ourselves a chance, we hope.”