Ronan McKinley played the full game yesterday, but the Republic of Ireland Under-16s were beaten 2-1 by Romania in Buftea.
McKinley played most of a 3-1 loss to the Romanians earlier in the week and was again in the engine room for Paul Osam’s side yesterday.
Ireland took the lead in the 32nd minute with a brilliant goal. Captain Seamus Keogh linked up with Kian Leavy then smashed the ball against the home crossbar and Conor Carty headed home from close range before home keeper Robert Popa could react.
Romania levelled matters in the 49th minute when Theodor Corbeanu headed home at the back post after a Ianis Stoica corner kick was not fully cleared by the Irish defence and the same player found the striker at the back post from the loose ball.
The home side went ahead in the 57th minute when the impressive Corbeanu pounced on a poor clearance then carved out the space for himself in the Irish penalty area to slot into the bottom corner for a fine finish.
“I though we were good in the first half and the work we’d done showed an improvement on the first game,” said Osam.
“Our build up play was good at times and defensively we were good before the break but it was similar to the other day in that we ran out of steam in the second half of the game. Players were reporting that they were fatigued. The conditioning of players is obviously an issue. It’s not an excuse but it is a pattern we’ve identified.
“Overall we’ve learned a lot about the players in these games and they’ve learned about us. The players now realise how fast international football is and how they have to match that level.
“Results wise it has not been great but individually there’s lots of good things we can take from this. Our goal was very pleasing as we’d worked on getting our full-backs higher up the field and it was very good to get the goal after working on that in training.”
