Wales 2 N Ireland 2

There are sometimes when you have watched a football match in the stadium and you cannot quite believe what you have seen. Tonight in the Millennium Stadium I had one of those moments wondering if a game could become any more farcical.

The first twenty minutes of tonight’s game reminded me so much of the last ten minutes of the Southend game at the Vetch last season. A card happy ref who seemed intent that the headlines would be made by him rather than the 22 (or is that 19?) players on the pitch.

The first twenty minutes of the first international between these two countries in 20 years produced three red cards and two goals for the visitors in an incredible display of incompetence.

Watching from high up on the opposite side of the stadium doesn’t give for a good view of one of the main incidents but I think the picture above pretty much sums up why one of the red cards was given but this wasn’t the start. Effectively this started when Paul Jones handled a good five yards outside his area. No booking, no talking to just a Northern Ireland free kick. A free kick that ended with Danny Gabbidon receiving lengthy treatment for a head injury. The game restarted rightly with a drop ball with Robbie Savage offering to give the ball back to Northern Ireland. An offer refused by Michael Hughes. A handbag discussion followed and it ended with Savage breaking away, as Savage does at the Northern Ireland defence. Cue a lunge from behind by Hughes and all hell breaks loose.

As I said the rest I did not see in the stadium but have seen on the news. Savage got up and protested against the challenge which he later declared was an attempt to break his leg by Hughes. Hughes, seen above threw a clear punch and was shown, rightly, a straight red card. To the disbelief of the Welsh contingent so was Savage – the first of his career. Hughes can have no arguments against his, Savage was surely hard done by. But this was only the start of the farce. Northern Ireland went one up, then two courtesy of Preston front man David Healy.

As he celebrated in the corner he kicked the corner flag out and was promptly booked by the referee. As he headed back to the centre circle he gestured to the crowd (or his family as Lawrie Sanchez said as he always celebrates that way) and a second yellow meant he was off. Disbelief not just for the player but also the 63000 crowd who wondered who was next on the hit list. Surely Healy must be one of the few players in history who scores and then picks up two bookings before the game kicks back off again. Harsh isn’t the word to describe it – incompetent refereeing is. No doubts about that whatsoever.

Northern Ireland predictably sat nine men back behind the ball from here on in. Earnie replaced Delaney (good move) and caused trouble and Hartson grabbed one on the half hour. 60 minutes to break them down again. It didn’t happen. Earnie equalised with 15 to go but that was it – more points dropped. All too often Wales looked for that one pass too many and the delivery into the penalty area was poor more often then it was good. Koumas is not Ryan Giggs and he never will be. Give the Irish credit they defended well and did what they really had to thanks to the referee but we were robbed of what could have been a good game of football tonight by those opening twenty minutes.

I have more observations though on the actions of some of our crowd tonight. The noise during the playing of the Irish anthem was deafening in it’s jeers. And for those couple of minutes I was ashamed. The same people booing would rant and rave if that was the treatment we got for our anthem but sadly it is the way that same think things have to be done. For me it is more intimidating to let them hear their anthem and then drown their sound out with ours. Fifty thousand Welshmen can be very loud and the performance of ours was resounding but for me spoilt by the treatment the Irish got.

And for one Welsh ‘fan’ in particular. For 45 minutes this creature stood in the top tier showing one (sometimes, two) fingers at the Irish supporters. Sometimes his mate joined in with him, but for most of the time this was a solitary show of bravery. But during the second half he decided to break with this neanderthal tradition and adopted the rather unusual stance of actually shouting for Wales. However, unless he was joined by the other 63,499 in the ground then that made everyone else “rugby w s” and Wales didn’t need us. We all stayed though just in case they ever changed their mind. We then finished the evening with a few Bluebird songs just to make our night complete before leaving ten minutes before the end as evidently he decided that Wales didn’t need him either. That was about the only thing he got right, Wales didn’t need him. (Of course he managed one more middle finger showing to the Irish support (which was magnificent) before he left.

Thankfully people like this are in the minority and I could have paid decent money to watch something equally as primitive at Bristol Zoo if I so chose.

The final word goes back to the Irish fans who made the Millennium Stadium have an atmosphere tonight and despite the result it was probably the best atmosphere I had seen there for an international. Shame about that referee and really for us it’s building for Euro 2008 already?

CLICK HERE FOR MATCH PICTURES