Norn Iron's quest for a place in South Africa in 2010 has finally up and running following a valuable point at Windsor Park following the disappointing result against Slovakia on Saturday.
Despite the outrageous £40 price tag for tickets the sell-out crowd saw what has to have been the best performance at Windsor since beating Spain in the Euro qualifiers. Yet again wind and swirling rain were the favoured conditions but throughout the 90 minutes Maik Taylor had pretty much nothing to do.
Just before half time the best chance of the game came to Warren Feeny which, had it not been for Petr Cech, would have surely seen the home side take the lead. Despite chances for Kovac and Sionko the N Ireland defence were stalwart and not showing the signs of playing too deep as they did on Saturday.
The second half was similarly lively with efforts from both Brunt and Feeny. Keith Gillespie yet again had an awesome game proving surely that he is still Premiership standard and showing little sign of the ankle injury he has been blighted with over the last few months. His efforts were unfortunately rewarded when a challenge niggled the old injury to see him replaced by Dean Shiels.
Some awesome individual performances saw the Ulstermen take a valuable point from the most difficult team in the Group. Despite a shoulder injury to Sammy Clingan and losing Steve Davis for the game for personal reasons Nigel Worthington will be delighted with this gritty performance that bodes well for the rest of the tournament.
Final Score: Northern Ireland 0 Czech Republic 0
Northern Ireland: Taylor, McCartney, Evans, Hughes, Craigan, Gillespie (Shiels 84), Clingan (O'Connor 45), Baird, Brunt, Healy, Feeney (Paterson 72).
Subs Not Used: Mannus, McAuley, McGivern, Thompson.
Czech Republic: Cech, Grygera, Jankulovski, Rozehnal, Ujfalusi, Kovac, Plasil, Polak, Sionko (Pospech 67), Sirl,Baros (Slepicka 78).
Subs Not Used: Drobny, Kadlec, Jarolim, Rajnoch, Fenin.
Booked: Ujfalusi, Kovac.
Att: 14,000
HDMOTM: George McCartney
Ref: Ivan Bebek (Croatia). |
