Soccer
Craig Bellamy angry at Wales’ first-half display in draw with Northern Ireland
Craig Bellamy let rip at his Wales team for a poor first-half performance before they recovered to draw 1-1 with Northern Ireland in a friendly in Cardiff.
Neither side particularly wanted to be at the Cardiff City Stadium after seeing their World Cup hopes ended in play-off semi-final defeats on Thursday night, and Wales’ week got worse 22 minutes in when Jamie Donley fired Northern Ireland into a deserved lead.
Isaac Price might have added a second before the break but the visitors’ failure to do so allowed Wales to level it just seconds after the break with a well-taken finish from Sorba Thomas after David Brooks’ shot fell to him inside the box.
Although his side were much improved in the second half, Bellamy’s frustration with the opening 45 minutes was clear.
“We were s*** in the first half,” he said. “Sideways, sideways, everything we are not. Do we win duels? No. Against this type of team? It was the first time at half-time I’ve had to go in and really go, ‘We cannot be that’.
“Don’t get confused about passing the ball and keeping the ball. We love teams that are able to win second balls and win your duels and I have to be honest, this team has always been brilliant at that.
“I have to look at if I got them ready enough. I thought I did before it in the messaging in (saying) we can’t waste games. Average teams have excuses. I don’t believe we’re an average team, but our behaviour was and that can’t be right.
“The second half was a lot better.”
Michael O’Neill took the positives from his side’s performance as they took the initiative before the break.
“We’re pleased to come here and to not lose the game,” he said. “I thought in the first 10 or 15 minutes we had to weather a little bit of a storm, but I thought we grew into the game and then from 15 minutes up to half-time we were probably the better team.
“I thought we created the better chances on transition in particular and we had other opportunities besides the goal that we scored.”
O’Neill made three substitutions at the break but unfortunately for goalkeeper Pierce Charles, his first task was to pick the ball out of the net after Thomas struck.
“It is a little bit fortuitous the way the ball deflects into the path of Thomas but that happens in the box and he takes his chance,” O’Neill added.
“I thought we showed good character because it could have been easy to think the game suddenly runs away from you. We knew that Wales had the potential to bring some of their first-choice players into the game which they did with Brennan Johnson and (Ethan) Ampadu.
“But I thought we stayed in the game well and the younger players, we asked a huge amount of them but they gave us everything and I think we deserved to take something from the game.”
