Isaac Price is right as 10-man Northern Ireland edge Iceland
Isaac Price made the difference at both ends of the pitch as 10-man Northern Ireland clung on for a 1-0 friendly win over Iceland in their final match before the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Price lit up a drab first half to put Northern Ireland ahead, but then had to head off his own line as it turned into a defensive scrap after Brodie Spencer was sent off for denying a goalscoring opportunity when Hakon Haraldsson went over under a slight touch just before the hour.
Michael O'Neill would have been hoping for a more straightforward night as he looks ahead to the autumn, but will take encouragement from the way his young side dealt with adversity to keep a clean sheet.
Before kick-off there was a presentation for the recently retired Steven Davis and Jonny Evans, two members of the Euro 2016 squad who each earned more than 100 caps for Northern Ireland.
But there was nothing to recognise Peter McParland, despite this game taking place only two days after his funeral. McParland, who scored five goals for Northern Ireland at the 1958 World Cup, died last month aged 91.
O'Neill made five changes to the side that started Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Copenhagen in Denmark, handing a long-awaited debut to Ronan Hale following his switch from the Republic of Ireland.
He saw little of the ball in a tepid start to the match as neither side looked capable of creating anything.
But in the 36th minute Northern Ireland took the lead out of nowhere and Price, who on Monday talked about how he has greater confidence following his move to West Brom in January, was the man to deliver his ninth international goal.
George Saville beat Arnor Ingvi Traustason to the ball, caught by a heavy challenge as he did so, and referee Morten Krogh played advantage. The ball ran to Price, who took a couple of touches before bending a shot into the bottom-right corner of the net.
Northern Ireland had finally woken up, and in first-half stoppage time Hale was inches away from a debut goal, cracking a shot off the crossbar after Trai Hume flicked on Justin Devenny's cross.
Ethan Galbraith replaced Paul Smyth at the break and was a whisker wide of a first international goal in the 56th minute with a flicked header from Shea Charles' free-kick. Then Hale burst into the box and got beyond the despairing dive of Brentford goalkeeper Hakon Valdimarsson, but his low cross was beyond Price.
The mood changed completely in the 57th minute. Spencer got into a foot race with Haraldsson, and the Iceland skipper went down theatrically under the slightest of touches. Krogh immediately produced a red card with Spencer the last man.
Iceland turned up the pressure as Northern Ireland were forced to defend their box and temperatures were raised.
Goalscorer Price turned into a defensive hero in the 67th minute, clearing Andri Gudjohnsen's header off the line, before Kristian Hlynsson sent a good chance narrowly wide.
In stoppage time, goalkeeper Pierce Charles kept out a point-blank header from Isak Johannesson and Northern Ireland held on.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Leinster are one win from glory, one loss from the sky falling on their head
Leinster are in the dock at Croke Park, on the northside too, standing accused of not being able to lift that having repeatedly got on-site during four Champions Cup and three URC raids they emerged empty-handed, without any of the silverware or gold medals on offer. Leinster, the club, may have seven of the 10 letters in the word larcenists but, damningly, none of the sticky fingers associated. Welcome to the 2025 URC Grand Final where if Leinster come up empty-handed again, there will be blood on the coaches' dance floor and somebody - either the most successful club coach in Irish history or a double-RWC winning one - will be job-hunting. This is, remember, a club with a dozen 2025 Lions and, notwithstanding Caelan Doris, Will Connors, Robbie Henshaw being injured and ex-Lion Cian Healy retiring, have another dozen players on the Ireland summer are bolstered by a close to €1m package funding All Black Jordie Barrett, double-Rugby World Cup winner RG Snyman and French propping legend Rabah Slimani.A Leinster who may catch all the plaudits, be greatly admired and much feted from near and far, do well off their budget when it is compared to Top 14 clubs and have a wonderful, working, pathway/Academy who, come the pointy end of the season, have repeatedly dropped the ball in semi-finals and finals. It's a mystery. Call Hercule Poirot even if he is Belgian, phone Humphrey Bogart's private eye Philip Marlow, or send for Sherlock Holmes or, how about, his now much-feted teenage sister Enola Holmes if you like and ask them to ask what they make of the puzzle. A good place fore them to start maybe wondering whether Leinster are suffering from being 'Club Ireland'. There is little disguising the Leinster collective having morphed into the Ireland World Cup/Six Nations team with former Leinster Academy man Tadhg Beirne and three southern hemisphere products operating out of Connacht in Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham tagged this translates to, intentionally or not, their seeing club rugby as a way of getting fit and peaking for international rugby then God only knows how they are mentally juggling Leinster-Ireland-Lions. The sheer joy of the Northampton players when they defeated Leinster in the recent Champions Cup semi-final carried over into the after-match proceedings - they were verily bouncing off the walls. A joy rarely seen from Leinster wins these days, there seems to be an auto-pilot in the mix. Whether they celebrate Leinster wins the way they celebrate Ireland wins is worth asking. Leinster assistant coach Jacques Nienaber is the most celebrated Defence Coach in the world. He was Rassie Erasmus's second-in-command for the 'Boks RWC 2019 win and Head Coach for the 'Boks RWC 2023 famously once said his coaching system would take 14 games to bed-in but this was at the start of last if you believe there is no such thing as a 'good' missed tackle or if, being less didactic, believe there is a problem with repeated missed tackles and that there is a certain amount required to be made in each game, then don't get into an argument with Nienaber. Leinster's three quarter-line for this evening's game has Tommy O'Brien who makes 58 percent of his tackles, Ringrose 51 per cent, Barrett 74 percent and James Lowe's 40 percent. This evening's full-back Jimmy O'Brien has a 79 percent tackle completion rate and he may be needed not least as the much criticised defensively Sam Prendergast brings a 50 percent completion rate to the party (Ross Byrne's is 88 percent!).There is a potential explanation of the Northampton loss in there. The Saints had a winger score a hat-trick, a flanker going blind-side and skating past the tackles. 37 points is a helluva lots of points to concede, to have to overhaul in a knockout game. At the same time apologies, that's a negative interpretation as to how rugby should be is a 2025 Lion, the best attacking no13 in Europe if not the world and he will be playing outside the best no12 in the attacking threat is ever-present, not least for his ability to keep the ball alive with inventive, clever offloads and his auxiliary kicking is a feature while Prendergast has a prodigious eye for a set of bigger-picture figures that have to be balanced, weighed up with, say, missing every second or third they are figures suggest that firstly Leinster are flat-track bullies, certainly against the bottom six/seven/eight URC outfits. And secondly, given their quality players can hold onto the ball, that they are very difficult to overhaul once they are this: The IRFU allowed a failed Ireland RWC 2019 to be glossed over when their official report blamed 'Performance Anxiety' - possibly the most infantile concept since nappies. Professional sportsmen are paid to 'perform' and on the back of those performances are in a salary meritocracy. Perform well, get more money, get picked again. How did the Performance Anxiety XV get to the top of the log in the first place?But if there is such a thing as Performance Anxiety, Leinster must have it not so much inadvertently picked as a virus but from the idea of it actually existing. Once you convince yourself it exists, it is too handy a crutch, an easy explanation. A little more practical self-scrutiny might help. Memo to Leinster committee in advent of losing this final, buy the players mirrors for Christmas so they can look at themselves in it. Because, make no mistake, repeated failure to win a tournament is building and building and contrary to accepted common sense. The players are not bad players, the collective have gotten it right most of the time and are able to get themselves into position to win a result the spotlight is turning more and more on coach Leo Cullen and assistant there something fundamentally wrong, not so much with selection based on empirical evidence that the player should have the jersey, but a flawed understanding of their individual make-ups in pressure is, for instance, under IRFU/Andy Farrell instruction that, once both are fit, to pick James Ryan and Joe McCarthy ahead of Snyman; he has more leeway with Barrett but still had to fill a quota for the Henshaw-Ringrose pairing. Moreover Cullen was told that the onus was on him to pick Prendergast this season, to bring him on with Ireland in mind, have him ready for the November series and first-choice by the Six is unlikely Cullen could have jettisoned Prendergast for the final had he wanted to but it is telling Ross Byrne is on the bench in a five-three split and not Ciaran Frawley or Jamie Osborne in a has the option to withdraw Prendergast if he wishes; if this isn't going well in the first-half, it will be a measure of this current management's decisiveness as to when they start to change the as it mightn't need Poirot, Marlow, Sherlock and Enola to detect, that really would be the point where the sky was falling on their that's a bit panicky, premature, apologies as Leinster take the field as massive favourites to win a game against a Bulls side who are an extremely blunt instrument and have very little matching the skill-levels and experience the Blues possess. Leinster can be backed at 1/5 - and most likely can only defeat themselves. Performance Anxiety, you ol' ambusher...
The Irish Sun
3 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
‘I think his tooth just fell out' – Sky Sports commentator convinced World Cup of Darts star suffered bizarre injury
A WORLD Cup of Darts star celebrated his win so wildly that his TOOTH appeared to fly out of his mouth. Petr Krivka allegedly lost a tooth after Czechia's win over India at the 4 Petr Krivka celebrated wildly after hitting tops at the World Cup of Darts 4 Krivka immediately bent down to pick it up and put it in his pocket before shaking hands with the India duo 4 Krivka didn't hold back when nailing tops to seal a 4-2 victory and send Group J winner's Czechia through to the last-16 knockout rounds. As Krivka turned around and let out a loud roar, he may have been alarmed to see something white and tooth-sized fly out of his mouth and land on the ground. The world No.147 even had to make his opponents wait a moment longer for the customary post-match handshake while he picked it up off the floor and put the object in his pocket. Sky Sports commentator Dan Dawson then delivered one of the most obscure commentary lines of all-time, saying: 'Petr Krivka celebrates so hard I think one of his teeth just fell out of his head! READ MORE DARTS "What a way to mark your passage through to the last 16! Czechia win it, India go out, and now the celebrations can properly begin for the Czech pair." Fans reacted to the hilarious moment on X, with one saying: 'Nothing surprises you in this tournament, it's absolutely mad.' There has been some confusion about whether Krivka really did lose a tooth, or whether it was just a stray piece of chewing gum. Some fans have even looked into the way it bounced to try and get to the bottom of it as the clip went viral on social media. Most read in Darts CASINO SPECIAL - BEST CASINO BONUSES FROM £10 DEPOSITS India were caught up in another viral incident on Friday, after their Chinese Taipei opponents got into a row on stage. Team-mates after the former spurned the chance to tie up the victory with a baffling miscount. 'Pure cinema… darts heritage' - Fans love Chinese Taipei vs India World Cup epic with team-mates 'ready to throw hands' With 38 left, Teng-Lieh hit a single one and then a treble 19 when only a double 19 was required to begin with, before Chinese Taipei won 4-2. Czechia secured their qualification into the second round on Friday, joining Sweden and Switzerland in booking their place. The second round, which begins on Saturday, sees top seeds Wales , Scotland and Northern Ireland all enter the competition. All eyes will be on the heavily-fancied England team of 4 A miscount from the Chinese Taipei team caused carnage at the Darts World Cup
Irish Daily Mirror
4 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Winning mentality is Michael Cheika's legacy at Leicester says star-man
Leicester lock Ollie Chessum is certain that Michael Cheika's influence will leave a lasting imprint on the club, regardless of the outcome in his final match as head coach against Bath in the Gallagher Premiership final. A season of transition awaits at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, with ex-Leicester player Geoff Parling poised to take the reins once the Australian leaves upon the conclusion of his one-year contract. Despite celebrating their last Premiership final victory just a few seasons ago, the Tigers ended up in eighth place in a lacklustre 2023-24 campaign. The arrival of Cheika – who took the Wallabies to the 2015 World Cup final and then guided Argentina into the last four two years ago – saw Leicester's fortunes transformed. On the back of a new-found mental resilience, Cheika's men were driven on to second place in the table behind Bath. Chessum, who fought his way back to fitness following a knee injury suffered in an England training camp in October, feels 58-year-old Cheika deserves plenty of plaudits for helping turn the club around. 'We were in a real good spot a few years ago as a group, and we probably lost our way a little bit and that is how you find yourself down in eighth and out of the play-offs,' said Chessum, set to be part of the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia. 'There is no denying that something needed to change in quite a few aspects of our game. 'Cheiks will say we have probably not changed too much technically, but it is just around that mental side and the emotional side of the game is what has really changed everything this year and has put us in this spot.' Chessum, 24, added: 'He just finds a way to galvanise the group, get them to find a real meaning in what they are doing and use that to to drive them on. Our mental approach for the team has changed massively towards games. 'He will say that goes a huge way towards winning, it is just believing you can do it and sort of shocking yourself really with what you are able to do as an individual. 'The way he has changed how the team approaches the game mentally has been a huge part of what he will leave as a legacy.' Cheika has named an unchanged side from the semi-final win over Sale for Saturday's showpiece at the Allianz Stadium, which will see several Leicester players make their last appearance in a Tigers shirt. Club stalwarts Dan Cole and Ben Youngs will retire while captain Julian Montoya, South Africa fly-half Handre Pollard, James Cronin and Matt Rogerson are all set to depart. Leicester lost home and away to Bath during the regular campaign, beaten 43-15 at The Recreation Ground in May. Chessum knows the Tigers will have to step up to the challenge as Bath seek to complete a trophy treble with what would be the Somerset club's first league title since 1996. 'They don't just play this stylish brand of rugby – they have still got this huge pack that can can break you down physically as well, so they are a great team,' Chessum said. 'We will have to front up on all fronts and be at our best to beat them, but that is the beauty of the challenge and of finals rugby.'
