Little spark as friendly fails to ignite

A scoreless draw in a pre-season friendly before a small crowd in a largely empty stadium is hardly one for the showreel.

But the clean sheet will certainly mean a lot to Keiren Westwood, the Irish keeper producing a couple of fine saves to ensure the Irish defence in the first game of the post-Shay Given era remained unbreached.

And while the occasion was far from a cure for those Euro blues, at least an experimental Irish line-up did enough to prevent a losing streak from extending to four.