Lafferty stars for Irish
Last updated : 21 October 2005 By Tony Scholes
It’s been a good week for the side too, who won one, drew one and lost one of the games but did enough to qualify for the UEFA Under-19 European Championships.
It started badly with a defeat at the hands of the Republic of Ireland, who hosted the full tournament, in Cork. They were beaten 2-1 with Daryl Fordyce scoring the goal. Things weren’t looking too good but they followed that up a day later with a sensational result, holding Italy to a 0-0 draw in Cork.
Kyle had the best chance of the game with just ten minutes to go but shot straight at the Italian goalkeeper but he was also brought down for what should have been a clear penalty only for the referee to wave the claims away.
Having played on Monday and Tuesday that left them needing a win last night against Moldova whilst needing the Republic to beat Italy, and that is exactly what happened. Their neighbours sorted out the Italians with a 4-1 win whilst Northern Ireland came from a goal behind to win 2-1 in Cobh.
Northern Ireland dominated the game and twice Kyle was unfortunate with shots that were well saved by the keeper, but it was Fordyce again who came up with the goods, the Portsmouth forward scoring twice in the last twelve minutes, including a scrambled effort in stoppage time, to see the Irish through.
