Ireland 0 Netherlands 4

John O´Shea

Re­pub­lic of Ire­land 0 Neth­er­lands 4, Lans­downe Road, In­ter­na­tion­al Friendly Mat­ch, Au­gust 16, 2006. The 4-0 ho­me de­feat ag­ainst the Neth­er­lands was prob­ably one of the worst mo­ments in the in­ter­na­tion­al ca­reer of Man­chester Uni­ted de­fender John O´Shea. The Dutch­men were two goals up at the in­ter­val be­fore they ad­ded two more in the sec­ond period.

The Re­pub­lic of Ire­land and the Neth­er­lands had pre­vi­ously met each oth­er 20 times, wi­th the Ir­ish win­ning sev­en of those mat­ches and los­ing el­ev­en. In their fir­st ever meet­ing, Ire­land had beaten Hol­land 2-0 thanks to one goal apiece from Joe O’Reilly and Pad­dy Moore in a friendly fix­ture at the Olympic Sta­dium in Am­s­ter­dam on the 8th of May 1932. At Landsdowne Road on the 16th of Au­gust 2006, how­ever, Ste­ve Staunton´s men took a re­al beat­ing from the Neth­er­lands in a one-sided mid­week clash. The Dutch went in­to the lead cour­tesy of Klaas Jan Hunte­laar of Ajax Am­s­ter­dam who head­ed ho­me a cor­ner kick from Arsenal´s Robin van Per­sie in the 24th min­ute of ac­tion, be­fore Chel­sea wing­er Ar­jen Rob­ben doubled the lead for the vis­it­ors wi­th a well pla­ced shot five min­utes ahead of the in­ter­val. In the sec­ond ha­lf, Hunte­laar notched up his sec­ond goal of the friendly fix­ture when he sco­red from clo­se ran­ge in the 53rd min­ute, whi­le Van Per­sie made it 4-0 to Hol­land as the pro­lif­ic marks­man fired a power­ful ef­fort from out­side the pen­alty area pa­st Re­pub­lic of Ire­land shot stop­per Pad­dy Ken­ny and in­to net af­ter 69 min­utes. Re­pub­lic of Ire­land Te­am: Pad­dy Ken­ny, Steph­en Carr, Ste­ve Fin­nan, John O’Shea, Andy O’Bri­en, Kev­in Kil­bane, Ste­ven Re­id, Gra­ham Kavanagh, Aiden McGeady, Steph­en El­li­ott, Clin­ton Mor­ris­on. Sub­stitutes: Steph­en Kel­ly, Jon­athan Douglas, Liam Miller, Alan O’Bri­en, Kev­in Doyle. Neth­er­lands Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Tim de Cler, Johnny Heitinga, Jor­is Math­ijsen, An­dre Oo­ijer, Denny Landz­aat, Ar­jen Rob­ben, Stijn Schaars, Ra­fael van der Vaart, Klaas Jan Hunte­laar, Robin van Per­sie. Sub­stitutes: Kew Jali­ens, Urby Emanuel­son, Nigel de Jong, Theo Janssen, Dirk Kuyt.

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