Cymru v Northern Ireland, International Friendly -

Regular contributor Stephen Baker (@StephenJBaker) took a trip down the CCS, along with his niece Nia, to cheer on the women’s team in their friendly against Northern Ireland.

Cymru 4 – 1 Northern Ireland

The press were building this up as a tough revenge match before kick-off, because Northern Ireland took the final qualifying place in Cymru’s Euro 21’ qualifying group. But from the first whistle Cymru were in control. During the first ten minutes Northern Ireland hardly threatened the Cymru half. The few times they did cross the half way line, they were quickly snuffed out by the Cymru midfield.

Breakthrough for Cymru came in the 16th minute when Sophie Ingle produced a chip pass down the right hand side that would have been applauded at the Masters this weekend. Rachel Rowe, who was at the end of the pass, crossed it just outside the 6 yard box where it was volleyed home by Jess Fishlock.

It wasn’t long before the record crowd for a friendly (6831, three times the previous record) were on their feet again. In the 25th minute Sophie Ingle produced another superb chipped pass, this time for Jess Fishlock to volley the ball across the goal for Angharad James to knock it in at the far post.

Even at this early stage the match was over as a contest with Cymru being in control of all areas of the pitch. It was a matter of when the third goal would come not if. The ‘when’ was just four minutes later after good work from Angharad James in the box, Rhiannon Roberts took the ball down to the dead ball line and crossed it in for Hannah Cain to smash the ball past the keeper for her first international goal.

At the start of the second half, Cymru took their foot off the gas with half an eye on Tuesday’s match against Portugal. Even in a lower gear, they were still in control. Just after the hour, following another perfect pass from Sophie Ingle, Ceri Holland crossed the ball from the right hand side. The Northern Ireland keeper came out and totally missed the ball, leaving it to land at the feet of Rachel Rowe. She fired home from 6 yards to make it 4-0 with 64 minutes on the clock.

That wasn’t the end of the goals, with a consolation for Northern Ireland, in the 73rd minute. A through ball from midfielder Rachel Furness was gathered by Gemma Evans. But under pressure from Lauren Wade, Evans mis-controlled the ball. Although Wade had an apparently an impossible angle, Olivia Clark was off her line and the NI player ratted a shot from the edge of the penalty area into the back of the net. A fantastic goal that ended a night of great goals.