European Under-19 Championship Qualifying/Republic of Ireland 3 Bulgaria 0:The Irish took a confident step towards a first European Youth finals appearance in five years last night at United Park where Adam Rooney's hat-trick early in the first half proved enough to earn Seán McCaffrey's side a victory.
Combined with the result at the Carlisle Grounds, where the Germans and Hungarians played a goalless draw, the win puts the Republic top of the group and in a strong position to qualify ahead of tomorrow evening's outing against Germany.
"If we could win then we'd almost be there," said McCaffrey after what was a highly impressive performance by his side. "In fairness to them (the Bulgarians) they kept playing out there this evening, but the game was won really after a quarter of an hour, even if we really never quite managed to kill them off.
"You saw tonight how Rooney had 16 goals in 18 international appearances coming into this game and I thought you could see the quality Anthony Stokes has, the little touches and flicks, we created an awful lot of chances in the second half and he could have had four or five."
Ireland had been pretty much assured of victory all right by the 16th minute when Rooney completed his hat-trick with a coolly struck shot on the turn that beat the Bulgarian goalkeeper low to his right.
It was by some distance the most the young Dubliner had to do for any of his three goals, with Velin Damyanov having inadvertently set up the first while attempting to dispossess Stokes out wide on the left and the Sunderland striker then earning a penalty which Robert Bayly took and Nikolay Mihaylov parried only for Rooney to step up and eagerly fire home the loose ball.
The Bulgarians were in disarray at that stage and it could have been considerably worse for them by half-time as Stokes and Rooney went close to adding to the Irish lead thanks, in both instances, to fine work by Alan Judge down the right flank.
The visitors' problems out wide prompted two changes before the break and things did get better for them as the game went on, although McCaffrey's men were by now playing like a team who reckoned they had the game won.
Lachezar Blatanov, the Levski Sofia starlet, whose reputation was presumably what had prompted Real Madrid to have a man at the game, pressed on from his initial role behind a lone striker and his team-mates in midfield finally started to get him on the ball a little, although even then he rarely looked capable of posing any great menace.
A solitary goal for the visitors might have made life a little uncomfortable for the Irish over the closing stages and Dimitar Iliev did have two decent chances to reduce the deficit.
On the first occasion Eddie Nolan's diving block prevented his angled shot reaching the target while, on the second, the striker's own hesitation allowed Stephen Henderson to clear the ball from his opponent's feet.
After that the home side calmly reasserted themselves, pushing the ball around well again in midfield and creating enough chances to double their advantage during the last 20 minutes.
A couple of the best fell to Stokes whose movement and power wasn't matched by the precision of his finishing, but the only real setback for the hosts was a booking for Bayly that rules him out of tomorrow's game.
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND:Henderson (Aston Villa); Davies (Reading), Spillane (Norwich City), Lowry (Aston Villa), Nolan (Blackburn Rovers); Judge (Blackburn Rovers), Ryan (Liverpool), Power (Nottingham Forest), Bayly (Leeds United); Rooney (Stoke City), Stokes (Sunderland). Subs: Madden (Leeds United) for Davies (53 mins), Redmond (Nottingham Forest) for Henderson (77 mins), Treacy (Blackburn Rovers) for Stokes (83 mins).
BULGARIA:Mihaylov; Vasilev, Damyanov, Ivanov, Lemperov; Hristov, Dyulgerov, Filipov, Ognyanov; Baltanov; Iliev. Subs: Abrashav for Hristov (30 mins), Pavlov for Dyulgerov (36 mins), Yordanov for Iliev (76 mins).
Referee: B Duatepaixao (Portugal).
Remaining Matches
Tomorrow - Rep of Ireland v Germany, Dalymount Park, 7pm. Saturday - Rep of Ireland v Hungary, Drogheda, 7pm.