It had taken a Herculean effort to make it last time and for this year's match the prospect of playing in such a unique Irish occasion would bring with it even greater pressures.

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What it really needs to do is make a systemic innovation to match the apps developer community of 2008 vintage.

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But the spate of injuries may make it difficult to match the haul from Budapest 12 years ago, when a team containing Denise Lewis, Steve Backley, Iwan Thomas and Darren Campbell brought back nine golds and 16 medals in total.

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