Scotland coast to Aviva victory

IT might be a matter of interest only to the most zealous of statisticians, but the Republic of Ireland and Scotland are joint top of the Carling Nations Cup table this morning after Craig Levein’s team comfortably saw off the feeble challenge of a weakened Northern Ireland side at the Aviva Stadium last night.

Although the crowd of 12,040 was easily contained within just the lower tier of the ground, both sets of supporters did their best to fire up the atmosphere, right from when the anthems were sung as lustily by one side as they were booed by the other.

In a small historical footnote, this is believed to have been the first time ‘God Save The Queen’ was played for a Northern Ireland soccer team in Dublin, the practice having always been to play only the home anthem when they came south to take on the Republic.

The North were seriously depleted through withdrawals in the days leading up to last night’s game but the Scots suffered their own late blow when Celtic captain Scott Brown was forced out of the warm-up with a groin strain, his place in the starting going to Wigan’s James McArhthur.

There was also a late change of referee, with Tomas Connolly replacing Alan Kelly who was taken ill and hospitalised some hours before the game.

In a lively start, Scottish captain and lone striker Kenny Miller squandered an inviting chance to open the scoring when blasting over from Kris Commons’ precise pull-back but, five minutes later, he made amends after some crazy pinball in the Northern Ireland defence following a corner saw the ball land at his feet inside right in front of the goal line.

This time the Bursaspor man wasn’t going to decline the invitation, and Scotland were one up.

Although Paddy McCourt showed some of the classy touches we expect of the gifted Derry man, Nigel Worthington’s patched-up team generally struggled to cope with the superior quality of players like Celtic’s Kris Commons, Blackpool’s Charlie Adam and Spurs’ Alan Hutton. But it was more a matter of pure luck when, just past the half-hour mark, what looked like an attempted cross from James McArthur crept in under the angle of crossbar and post to embarrass Jonathan Tuffey in the Irish goal and put the Scots two to the good.

And although Inverness ’keeper Tuffey recovered well to deny first Phil Bardsley and then James Morrison with fine saves, it seemed only a matter of time before the now-rampant Scots added to their tally. Even the appearance off the bench for the second half of the North’s record scorer David Healy did little to turn the tide and, in the 50th minute, a fluent passing move ended with the impressive Commons finishing from close range to make it three for Scotland.

The Carling Nations Cup resumes on Tuesday, May 24 when the Republic of Ireland take on Northern Ireland, followed by Wales v Scotland on May 25 and Wales v Northern Ireland on May 27. The tournament concludes on Sunday May 29 when the Republic of Ireland take on Scotland in what, even at this early stage, is shaping up to be the kind of winner-takes-all decider which might just entice a decent crowd into the Aviva Stadium.

SCOTLAND: McGregor, Hutton, S. Caldwell , Berra, Bardsley (Wilson 57), Morrison (Maguire 79), Adam (Bannan 56), Commons (Conway 72), McArthur, Naismith (Snodgrass 57), Miller (Wilson 89)

NORTHERN IRELAND: Tuffey, McArdle (Hodson 45), Craigan (Thompson 65), McAuley, Baird, Evans, Davis ( Norwood 58), McCann (Healy 45), McGinn (Boyce 72), McCourt, Patterson.

Referee: Tomás Connolly (Rep of Ireland ).