Ireland Men’s Under-17s Head Coach Colin O’Brien has praised his young side after qualifying for the Elite Phase of the UEFA European Under-17 Championships Qualifiers.

O’Brien’s team pipped Lithuania to second spot, in dramatic fashion, after Goodness Ogbonna’s 94^th minute strike against Scotland snatched the group’s final qualification spot with Ireland progressing due to a better disciplinary record.

They join neighbours Northern Ireland through to the next phase and the Ireland coach said he pleased with his side performance to get over the line.

He said:  “You can’t be in control of the other game but the key message from us was we knew we had to win, we needed to score one or two goals but also to keep a clean sheet.

“At half-time I felt we could have been 3-1 up, we really took the game to Scotland. We had so many attacks and our play deserved more goals. We hit the crossbar, we had balls flying across the goal that just needed a touch. We performed very well.

“We knew Lithuania were up and we may have to get a second goal – maybe a third-  and that was the message to the players.

“Coming to the North and playing Scotland too, in addition to young referees learning their way in the game, we knew discipline could be a factor so I’m really proud the players kept that level of discipline going forward - it proved huge for us.”

After completing a 3-0 win there was still an agonising wait to know if the goal and disciplinary record was enough to qualify.

“At the final whistle we wasn’t sure if we had progressed,” said O’Brien.

“Sometimes you can’t rely on technology and human error can play a factor, so we wanted to make sure we were ok. I was part of an Under-17 staff many moons ago where we were told we’d qualified, only to find out the other game was still going and there was a goal that knocked us out. So I’ve been in this position before and the main thing is clarity and confirmation from UEFA.

“We always prepare the players for every eventuality and sometimes they’re looking at you a bit confused but this will be a big lesson for them. To see the joy on their faces and the reaction was something that was really touching."

The Under-17s Head Coach also thanked the fans who made the trip to Co. Antrim in the last week, adding: "I want to thank everyone who came to the North to support us during the games. It didn’t go unnoticed and it was felt by me, the staff and the players. You could particularly feel that support in the last game when we were going into the final stretch and I’m so pleased we were able to reward them with a joyous day.”

O’Brien said the route out of the first round of qualifiers is becoming more challenging, explaining more teams are finding it harder to progress.

He said: “In European international youth team football there are 52 participating countries competing to progress from Round One of qualifiers. From my experience there’s around seven, perhaps eight, teams who struggle to qualify, but every other country is competitive and that’s what makes it such a challenge to progress.

“You’ll always have your ‘tier one’ nations that will do consistently well but for every other nation it’s really competitive and that’s what we had this week. You can’t underestimate any other country.

“The amount of teams qualifying with nine points is becoming slimmer and slimmer, groups are going to the last game, like ours, and what a performance and what an ending it turned out for us.

“I went to watch Lithuania play and I knew they would be tough opponents, they have a style of play that the players buy into and it’s effective. What I was more disappointed with was that we didn’t get a third goal against them because we knew their direct play could cause problems and it did. But we got a point, and that’s tournament football, we were able to build on that. Then with Northern Ireland and Scotland they become ‘derby’ games and the players have to deal with that. Michael Noonan scores a goal against Northern Ireland and it proves massive for us because goals were what got us into the position to qualify.”