In the opening ‘B’ fixture played at the Civil Service Sports Ground, Stormont, Ireland started brightly and put the Welsh defence under early pressure. An early chance fell to Jack Lyons of Crystal Palace but having taken a cross from Ian Coffey and neatly turning the centre back, he shot over the bar.

Ireland were stunned on 14 minutes when a lapse of concentration enabled the Welsh striker Wade to get in front of the defence and open the scoring for Wales. Ireland quickly regained their poise and central defenders Simon Dunne and Daragh Tuffy took command of the situation enabling a greater focus on attack.

Just before the break, Dunne rose to power home a fine header from a corner delivered by Ian Coffey of Willow Park. Coffey indeed had caused the Welsh defence repeated problems with his direct running down the left flank.

Ten minutes into the second half, Jason Sheahan and Darren Murray replaced Garreth Matthews and Elbhain Connolly and within two minutes Sheahan scored what turned out to be the winning goal. A free-kick taken by James Doyle broke off the defensive wall and Sheahan was quickest to react to shoot home.

Team: Thorpe; Matthews, Dunne, Tuffy, Langan; Doyle, Dawson, Connolly, Coffey; Lyons, Tourish;

Substitutes: 50m. Sheahan & Murray for Matthews & Connolly
60m. McLaughlin & O’Connell for Langan & Tourish
72m. Guthrie for Thorpe

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The second ‘A’ match saw Ireland romp to a comfortable 6-1 victory. The scene was set in 36 seconds when Michael Collins of Cherry Orchard scored the opening goal. Shortly afterwards a through ball from Ian Daly freed Garry Frewen to score the second.

Wales did manage to breach the Irish defence and pull a goal back but any hopes they had of mounting a sterner challenge were expunged when within minutes, Ireland responded and scored twice through Daly and Conor McCormack.

Immediately following the restart, David Joyce of Castlebar Celtic headed a fifth Irish goal from a Frewen free-kick. This prompted manager Vincent Butler to introduce all five of his permitted substitutes.

One of the substitutes, Craig Duggan made an instant impact when his pace took him clear of the defence and he rounded the goalkeeper to slot home the sixth goal.

Ireland played out the remainder of the game on cruise control with an injury to Joyce, which forced him to leave the field and reduced the team to ten men for the last 20 minutes, being the only real disappointment.