Northern Ireland boss Nigel Worthington celebrated his first away victory as an international boss — but admitted the 3-0 win over San Marino had come at a cost.
Gareth McAuley, Grant McCann and Chris Brunt scored the goals but key trio Kyle Lafferty, Steven Davis and McCann were all booked and will miss the crunch World Cup qualifying clash against Poland next month.
Three points against the Group Three minnows moved Northern Ireland up to second in the table, and Worthington was keen to take positives from the encounter.
Referring to the bookings, he said: “That’s the blip on tonight. It was a good professional performance, good attitude and focus on the game. We passed the ball well at times, scored three good goals and kept a clean sheet — they’re the positives.
“We’ve lost three, that’s the situation as it is at the moment. But let’s enjoy the three points, which puts us into second place. Now we can look forward to a hard game, but a great game, against Poland.”
McAuley was thrilled to score his first goal in a Northern Ireland shirt.
He said: “It’s not every day you get a feeling like that. I got a good connection on it and it got us off to a good start.”
