Woodburn produces magic in late rescue act for Wales

TEN-MAN Serbia took a firm grip on Group D and dealt a huge blow to the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup hopes with a 1-0 win over Martin O’Neill’s side in Dublin last night.

The play-off matches will be between the eight best runners-up in the nine qualifying groups and for Wales to finish second they must win their final two matches next month, away to Georgia and then at home to the Republic of Ireland.

The reverse fixture ended in a comfortable 4-0 win for Wales as goals from Sam Vokes, Joe Allen and Gareth Bale (brace) clinched the three points.

Failure to take maximum points from these two games, regardless of events elsewhere, would nearly certainly mean the end of Welsh World Cup hopes; six points from six points, however, and the light at the end of the Group D tunnel would be that much brighter.

“He’s very young and we have to take it slow unless we’re forced to and then we’ll have to be careful”.

In fact, Moldova have only won two of their last 32 matches and they were friendlies against Andorra and more recently, San Marino.

Wales are the big favourites at [1.43], with the draw available at [4.4] and Moldova out at [9.8].

Woodburn had just turned 16 and almost two years on, Bale was in admiration of the teenager’s goal on his Wales debut against Austria on Saturday.

“He knows it was a great goal and knows what he did was awesome for us all”.

When at his best though, the 26-year-old is the lynchpin for Wales, creating space for Gareth Bale to exploit with his pace and explosiveness.

Coleman said: “They were good results for us tonight, with Serbia beating Ireland”.

“It’s a good recipe that hopefully can help us”.

Wales, now 3rd in their qualifying group, still has quite a bit of work to do in order to qualify.

“People will make sure he keeps his feet on the ground, even though they don’t need to”.

“Away to Georgia, it doesn’t come much tougher but bring it on”.

“He’s so young, but he showed again that he’s good enough and capable enough”.

Another win for Coleman’s side could give them the ideal boost going into the final two games of the group, where they will travel to Tbilisi to face Georgia before hosting the Republic of Ireland at the Cardiff City Stadium.