Givens hails young guns

Don Givens hailed tonight’s 2-0 victory over Russia as one of the highlights of his reign in charge of the Republic of Ireland Under-21s.

Coventry striker Graham Barrett marked his 25th cap by giving Ireland a deserved 65th-minute lead and also had a big hand in the second goal after 81 minutes which went in off Russian substitute Anton Rogotchi.

The victory avenged the defeat in Moscow a year ago by the same scoreline and Givens was delighted with some of the individual performances of his players.

“It’s nice to end the home part of the campaign on a very positive note and when you beat Russia it is always good,” said Givens. “That ranks up there with the best of them. We showed a lot of composure and did very well, it was a very good performance.

“I felt we deserved to win, although we did survive a rocky spell at the start of the second half. Some of the individual performances were very good.

“Andy Reid didn’t put a foot wrong and created a lot of chances; then there was Liam Miller in the middle of midfield, you know what he is always going to give you and he is on a high at the moment because he is in the Celtic team; Thomas Butler caused them some problems and we had decent performances all over the place.”

Ireland’s final game of the campaign is in Switzerland next month and Givens, who has pledged to ring the changes, was pleased some of his senior players signed off in style.

He said: “We couldn’t qualify and for a lot of the boys this was probably their last game because I am going to change the squad around a bit for the match in Switzerland and introduce some of the new boys, so it was important for those boys to finish on a high.

“It’s a fresh era and when you look down the line we have got a good conveyor belt of talent coming and we need to keep that going up to Brian Kerr. Sean Thornton is still available for another two years, and there are the likes of Stephen Elliot, Stephen Brennan and Stephen Kelly.

“Brian knows these boys well and he will have seen tonight what they are capable of, and you’d like to think he might look in this direction when he needs more players.”