U21 Four Nations Tournament : England 2: Ireland 0
Just back from the Representative tournament down in Eastbourne.
Had fun and games getting there. Managed to do 7miles in over an hour crawling my way through Streatham, South London at the very start of the journey. Then about 15 miles from Eastbourne I managed to find myself stuck behind an entire travelling circus that was en-route in the same direction. A big convoy of srtics, caravan trailers, fairground thingmys doing 20 miles an hour and causing a big old tail-back. Great.
Anyways - on to the game. I'll never complain about the wind in the Carlisle Grounds again - there should be a bye-law against having football pitches near to seas, as a serious wind blows into Eastbourne's ground in apparently every game. First half was roughly balanced - few opportunities for either team, and England possibly edged it very slightly.
Second half was a different story. From the start England began to dominate, and save a few brief spells of Irish control it was England's half. The goals came in the last part of the game (c. 70th and 80th mins at a guess), and both were headers in the box from corners. We didn't seem capable of dealing with the aerial threat form set pieces. If it hadn't been for a cracking performance by Terry Masterson in the nets, it would've been 3 or 4 nil easily.
Decent crowd of c.400 as well I'd say.
In the other game WEales beat Scotland 2:1.
Only other thing of note is that Stephen Kenny sent Darragh McGhee in place of Mark McChrstal form the city team as, in the words of some FAI fella I'd a quick chat with (Joe Duffy ??) McChyrstal "wants away". Which is true.
Next-up Scotland on Thursday and Wales on Saturday. I suspect England will win the tournament again this year.
