Eoghan O’Connell made a belated competitive debut for Ireland’s u-21 side as they beat Slovenia 2-0 on Friday night.
The Celtic defender had been overlooked from the start of the qualification campaign but after catching the eye of Martin O’Neill he was brought into Noel King’s squad.
Qualification was already out of bounds but two late goals from Henry Charsley and Sean Maguire gave Ireland their fourth win of the campaign with a largely recast team.
Looking ahead to the double header King said: “We’ve a tough period ahead with these two games and then the visit of Serbia in October. Slovenia are ranked ahead of us and showed over there that they are a good team but what was disappointing from our point of view was the fact that we conceded three goals from set pieces in that game.
“We have to look at that. We will look to correct it and will try to win this game on Friday. There is a lot of emotion around the game with us returning to Waterford for the first time without Milo Corcoran with us following his sad death earlier this week.
“We’ll all try to do the best we can for him. He was a man of high standards and will be a huge loss around the staff table and amongst the players, where he was very highly respected.”
Friday night’s defeat to Ireland was a major blow to Slovenia’s qualification hopes and leaves them five points behind Italy with just two matches left to play.
On Tuesday Ireland face Serbia in Novi Sad in their second last match of the campaign.