Wales 1 Finland 1

Wales 1 Finland 1

In truth, a draw was possibly more than what Wales deserved but thinking back to other qualifications in the past how many times have we lost when we deserved to get something? After the dream start when Simon Davies latched onto a John Hartson flick to put Wales ahead it all went slightly wrong as Finland time and time again came at the Welsh defence.

All too often the Welsh attacks broke down quickly and Finland broke in numbers but luckily in the first half their shots were reduced to long range efforts that failed to trouble Paul Jones. Second half was a different story as Jones was called upon on several occasions to rescue Wales when it seemed odds on a Finland equaliser. But he was powerless to stop the equaliser when it came as Forssell headed home unmarked in the penalty area.

By this time Wales were down to 10 men following the sending off of Jason Koumas. It seemed as if we may have escaped the referee realising he had already been booked but there was no luck there and he trudged off the park – in reality without a complaint as both offences deserved a card.

At the final whistle the score came through from Belgrade and Italy had too dropped points which secured the play off spot as a minimum but could have been so much better with a win as Wales would have stood within a win of qualification. It will now be the lottery of the play offs and the way that Wales perform over two matches in November that decides where we will be heading next summer.

A few thoughts on the performance. Earnshaw was not at the races tonight and was in effective but in fairness to him so was much of the Welsh play. Rhys Weston looked out of his depth and Hartson was without a doubt unfit from the start. Melville and Page played well enough but Gabbidon is a must for this welsh defence. Simon Davies put in a good performance until he reverted to right back when Johnson came on for Weston. Koumas does not impress me and at least Savage will be back for the next games. Giggs still doesn’t always seem interested for Wales – too often he ran into trouble and then blamed a team mate for it and with a few minutes to go a simple ball into the box would have given Wales the win – Giggs failed to get the ball past the one defender that stood between him and the two attackers. Having said that he is the most talented we have and we wouldn’t manage without him.

This was probably the worst Wales performance of the qualifying campaign so far and we will need to improve dramatically if we want to get through the play offs and onward to Portugal. But we have a chance in there and two years ago we would have taken that at this stage. We can still do it and Wales wouldn’t be Wales if we didn’t do it the hard way.

What are your thoughts? Share them on the Message Board