Staunton claims debut win

Wednesday, 01, Mar 2006 10:56

Republic of Ireland manager Steve Staunton has claimed a commanding 3-0 win over Sweden in his first match in charge at Lansdowne Road.

Goals from Damien Duff, new captain Robbie Keane and Liam Miller helped Eire to victory as World Cup-bound Sweden were outplayed.

Goalkeeper Shay Given had to stop Sweden from taking an early lead as he met the ball at the feet of Juventus striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

However, Chelsea winger Duff was in dominant form and he gave Ireland the lead on 36 minutes with his first goal for his country in two years.

He beat Southampton defender Alexander Ostlund with trickery before cutting in and drilling a right-foot shot into the bottom corner of the net.

Captain Keane then scored the second two minutes into the second-half, running onto Ian Harte's defence-splitting ball and slotting the ball past goalkeeper Andreas Isaksson.

Miller then sealed an impressive win for the Irish with 19 minutes to go as he picked up the ball and ran at the defence before smashing the ball from 25 yards into the net.

Elsewhere, Northern Ireland hung on for a narrow 1-0 win over Estonia at Windsor Park.

Ian Sproule scored his first goal for his country after only two minutes, getting on the end of James Quinn's flick-on to smash the ball in from close range.

Both sides had chances to add to the goal-tally but it remained 1-0 to Lawrie Sanchez's men at the final whistle.track

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