Gareth McAuley reflected with a mixture of devastation and pride after his own goal ended Northern Ireland’s Euro 2016 campaign at the hands of Wales.
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The breakthrough finally arrived in the 75th minute when Gareth Bale’s whipping low cross was turned in by a desperate McAuley in an attempt to stop the cross from reaching Hal Robson-Kanu at the far post. We keep grinding out results, whether we’re playing 100 per cent as we were against Russian Federation or against Northern Ireland when we were off it a bit.
“Every game is different and it’s tough to go into every game with the same mentality”.
Wales fan Greg Mason, 41, from London, said: “There’s been good banter on the train with some Northern Ireland fans but I think we’ll win tomorrow”.
In that time Aaron Ramsey found Bale in space he had craved all day, and he made the most of it with a flawless ball into the box between McAuley and goalkeeper Michael McGovern.
Coleman, while graceful enough to accept that it was a lucky win for his men, praised their ability to cope with hard games such as the one they had against N. Ireland on Saturday.
The last 16 tie between the British rivals produced little goalmouth action with Wales only managing to get one shot on target during the whole 90 minutes- a Bale free kick from 25 yards.
“I can definitely see Wales getting through to the semi-finals”, Evans told Sport360 after the game. “I don’t think it would have been undeserved had we got that. It is unfortunate but I don’t pick my players based on what the fans sing”, O’Neill said.
“We were unlucky not to go into the quarter-finals”.
“But I’d rather be standing here in the quarter-final despite not playing at our best”.
O’Neill, speaking about the loss to Wales, said he “felt it was a very tight game” so to lose the game the way the team did was “very, very cruel”.
“There was so much riding on this game”, an elated Coleman said after the game. The 46-year-old got his tactics spot on and was only denied by the quality of Gareth Bale’s cross. It’s an wonderful experience, one I’ll never forget.
“We have to plan for the next game whoever it is – but we’ll enjoy this tonight”.
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The French public – including their police – and other fans from the tournament all paid tribute to the positive conduct and fun attitude of the Northern Ireland fans during the tournament.
