IRISH FIRE BLANKS AS THE MISERY CONTINUES

NO WAY THROUGH Brady went closest to breaking the deadlock

ROBBIE BRADY came within a whisker of ending Stephen Kelly’s miserable spell as Ireland boss.

The Burnley defender beat Bulgarian keeper Martin Lukov in the 68th minute with a spectacular 20-yard shot only for it to smash against the bar and bounce away to safety.

Kelly is still waiting for his first win in eight games since taking over, and the Republic have now gone almost 11 hours without scoring a single goal.

James Collins had led ed the way in trying to break the deadlock but could never come up with anything quite good enough for a much- changed Ireland side.

Shortly before the interval the Luton striker should have done better when he met a

Daryl Horgan centre but his header lacked real power and ended up dropping onto the roof of the net.

In ththe 54th minute, Collins cacame really close when heh shot on the turn from eight yards only to see the ball fly inchesi wide of the popost. But then Ireland twice rode their luck as sloppy defensive play almost cost them dear. First, keeper Darren Randolph made a right hash of trying to clear but got lucky and Zdravko Dimitrov blazed over from four yards out at the far post.

Randolph 7, O’Shea 7, Duffy 7, Long 6, Manning 6, Knight 6, Hourihane 6, Brady 7 (Byrne 80), Horgan 6 (Cullen 66, 5), Collins 6, Curtis 7

Lukhov 6, Popov 5, Dimitrov 5, Angelov 5, Cicinho 6 (Vasilev 60, 5), Malinov 5, Tsvetkov 5, Delev 5 (Kovachev 60, 5), Iliev 6 (Aleksandrov), Ivanov 6 (Karagaren 60, 5), Kraev 7

Lawrence Visser