Wales will be promoted to the top tier of the Nations League if they avoid defeat at home to Finland on Wednesday, having remained on top of their group thanks to David Brooks’s second-half winner against the Republic of Ireland. Ireland had been the better side in Cardiff until Brooks made the breakthrough but the hosts did not look like losing the lead once they got it.
This was Wales’s seventh competitive clean sheet in a row. Ireland have yet to win after seven games under Stephen Kenny and have scored only once in a run during which they have been ravaged by injuries and misfortune. They will suffer relegation in the Nations League if they lose to Bulgaria on Wednesday. Jeff Hendrick will be unavailable for that game after being sent off in stoppage time for chopping down Tyler Roberts to sabotage a counterattack.
With Rob Page in interim charge as Ryan Giggs remained absent following his arrest earlier this month on suspicion of assault – a charge he denies – Wales started with a back three, the formation that helped them to win in Bulgaria last month. But they looked impotent against Ireland until they reverted to a back four and introduced Kieffer Moore up front, with the powerful striker unsettling the Irish defence in the run-up to Brooks’s goal.
“We always have a plan B,” said Page. “At the start of the game we didn’t have that presence in the box so we decided to switch it back.” Page bemoaned the “little bit of sloppiness” shown by his side in a first half in which Ireland looked the more polished. The visitors had a chance to break their duck in the second minute but Shane Duffy failed to connect cleanly with Robbie Brady’s sumptuous free-kick.
Ireland continued to build patiently after that and their clever pressing frequently disrupted a Welsh side lacking fluency, with their forward trio of Daniel James, Gareth Bale and Brooks rarely involved. Although he exerted little influence in general play, Bale came closest to scoring for the hosts in the first half, clipping the top of the crossbar with a free-kick from 30 yards.
That was closer than Ireland came in the first period, too, although the visitors did at least create a clutch of chances. Neco Williams was forced into a superb clearance in front of his goal after a wicked cross from the right by Daryl Horgan, after which Brady fired over from the edge of the area. A pass by Brady on the half hour rewarded a smart run by James McClean, whose shot from the right brought a good save from Danny Ward.
Wales perked up in the second period, with Bale unloading a decent shot from 18 yards within moments of the restart, but Ireland still looked relatively comfortable until Wales abandoned their original plan and switched to a 4-2-3-1 system after the introduction of Moore in the 63rd minute.
The striker’s first contribution was to get booked for trying to trick the referee into giving him a penalty. That was not the sort of creativity Wales had been looking for. But two minutes later they broke through with their most cutting move of the game. James hurtled down the right and crossed to the near post. Duffy, perturbed by Moore, could only head it beyond the far post, where Bale arrived to send it back into the danger zone, and Brooks arrived unmarked to nod into the net from close range.
Brooks had a chance to score again on a counterattack in the 78th minute but Darren Randolph produced a fabulous one-handed save. There was no rescuing Ireland from another defeat, however, nor from their sixth successive game without a goal, the worst barren streak in their history.
Kenny remains convinced Ireland will start scoring and winning once their luck turns, especially with regard to injuries. “There’s no point feeling sorry for ourselves,” he said. “I’ve no doubt I will be a success. We have a clear vision of what we want.”
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