TinyChan

IRISH GO FOR BOLD TO WIN BULG BATTLE

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND boss Heimir Hallgrimsson has urged his players to be more assertive if they want to complete a Nations League play-off victory over Bulgaria.

First-half headers from Finn Azaz and Matt Doherty secured a deserved 2-1 comeback success in the first leg of the promotion-relegation decider in Plovdiv.

Ireland responded well to the shock of Marin Petkov's sixth-minute opener, but offered little attacking threat in a stop- start second period.

Hallgrimsson's men hope to finish the job and remain in League B when Bulgaria visit the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

"I don't think we have to change many things, but we obviously need to be a little bit less passive like we were in the second half," he said.

"We gave them a little bit of initiative in the second half, which we should not have done. We need to fix that and improve for the next game. "Maybe because we were winning and we haven't done much of that lately, you automatically tend to get a little bit more passive than we should and we need to correct that."

Victory in front of 1,000 travelling fans at a sparsely-populated Hristo Botev Stadium was a third in seven games since Hallgrimsson was appointed last summer.

The Icelander masterminded wins home and away against Finland during the group phase, but his team failed to score in their other four fixtures. including a 5-0 thrashing against England at Wembley.

"There's not been many wins and not many comebacks." Hallgrimsson said. "I'm pleased with the character and discipline we showed.

" I knew if we would do what we talked about in planning and training that we would have a good game.

"First half we did that: second half we didn't do it as well."