Tyler Toland played the full game today as the Republic of Ireland Women’s Under-17s defeated Serbia 1-0 in their first game in the Elite Round Qualifiers in Belgrade.
The St Johnston native, a student at Deele College, is a key cog in the Girls in Green and Toland was vital again as Dave Bell’s team scored a vital win.
A late goal from Alannah McEvoy helped the Irish to a narow win.
“I’m delighted for the girls because it was a very hard-working performance put in by everyone in the team,” said Bell afterwards.
“We started well and had two or three chances to take the lead inside the first 15 minutes. Then our passing went a bit sloppy and Serbia came back at us, but we kicked on again, controlled the possession and always looked like scoring.
“It is a great win because we kept a clean sheet, didn’t pick up any yellow cards and got the three points that we targeted. If we can reach those standards in our next two games then I would be confident of progressing further.”But there is still work to do and we will turn our attention to Scotland now. We have watched some of their DVDs and will do our homework on them. But I’m really pleased by this performance and it puts us in the driving seat.”
Ireland recorded six attempts on target overall with Carla McManus, Tiegan Ruddy and Sadhbh Doyle going close before McEvoy found the breakthrough on 77 minutes, thanks to an incisive assist from captain Ruddy.
That goal proved to be the winner and it sets Ireland up nicely ahead of facing Scotland on Wednesday and Hungary on Saturday.
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