Crawford hails his Under 21s’ European efforts

REPUBLIC of Ireland Under 21 manager, Jim Crawford hailed his wider squad for putting themselves in such a strong position to reach next year’s European Championship Finals.

Thanks to a run of four wins on the bounce, the Boys-in-Green are currently second in Group F of the qualifying phase for this prestigious international tournament, with one game still to play against pace-setters Italy on June 14.

Despite guiding his charges to a 3-0 victory over Bosnia & Herzegovina in his home town of Tallaght last Friday, Crawford made five changes for the arrival of Montenegro to the same venue on Monday.

It did nothing to halt Ireland’s momentum, however, as Will Smallbone, Liam Kerrigan and Tyreik Wright found the net in a convincing 3-1 success.

“That’s the group that we have and I’ve said it time and time again in team meetings, that it’s a squad game” Crawford remarked when speaking to RTE in the aftermath of the victory.

“It’s a squad that is going to get us over the line and they just proved it.

“The game on Friday was a 7.30 kick-off and today was 5. It was even less time than normal to recover and the boys that came in today did excellent. There were two lads making their debut and they were very, very good.”

Should Sweden fail to beat Italy in Helsingborg on Thursday, Ireland will be guaranteed at least a play-off spot from Group F.

While a win for the Italians would see them emerging as group winners, any other result could leave the door open for the Republic to secure an automatic place in next year’s finals in Romania and Georgia.

“It’ll be nice to sit back and see what happens between Sweden and Italy on the Thursday, which will obviously change a lot of things for ourselves,” Crawford continued.

“If it’s a draw, we can go on and win the group.

“If Sweden win, we’ve got to go to Italy and win. If we win, there’s every chance we’ll win the group again. We’re in a nice place, that’s for sure.”