Women's Euro 2025: Superb Northern Ireland at the double

Northern Ireland rounded off their group stage campaign with a superb home win and peformance to comfortably see off Bosnia and Herzegovina last night.

Second half goals from Joely Andrews and sub Lauren Wade saw Tanya Oxtoby's side picked up deserved back-to-back wins and do the double over their visitors with their play-off spot for Euro 2025 confirmed.

The win and Hungary's defeat to Turkey in Group B1 means Nirthern Ireland will be seeded for that play off draw, giving them a good opportunity of making it to their second major tournament, next year in Switzerland.

Oxtoby made two changes to her starting line-up from the one that beat Malta 2-0 away last Friday.

Andrews – one of a trio of Northern Ireland internationals to sign with Scottish Premiership side Hearts in the last 10 days, alongside Kerry Beattie and Lauren Wade – came into the middle of the park at the expense of former Glentoran team-mate Nadene Caldwell.

Meanwhile, Danielle Maxwell took up a wide-right position, coming in for her fellow Cliftonville attacker Louise McDaniel.

A bright start by the home side saw them create the first chance of the game with less than four minutes on the clock. Keri Halliday seized on possession all of 30 yards out and the Linfield livewire decided to try her luck from distance, with her shot whistling just past the right-hand post as visiting goalkeeper Almina Hodzic scrambled to ensure it wasn’t on target.

Captain Laura Rafferty then went close in the space of three minutes early on, both chances coming from Casey Howe corners from the right.

The first saw Rafferty’s poked effort blocked on eight minutes, before the Rangers defender then headed just wide from another pinpoint delivery into the penalty area.

Just before the midway point of first half, the visitors served warning of the threat they posed, when Emona Ekic weaved her way past two tackles inside the box before seeing her shot deflected out for a corner by the alert Rafferty.

It was the girls in green who had the next clear sight of goal in the 27th minute when, following some neat interplay between Beattie and Andrews on the left, Howe curled in a deep cross to the back post. Maxwell was on hand to nod it goalwards and despite it looking like it was going wide, Hodzic wasn’t taking any chances, diving to scoop the ball behind.

The home side had two big chances in the final few moments of the opening period.

On 42 minutes, the excellent Andrews was denied by the woodwork as her clipped effort from the edge of the box had Hodzic beaten, but came back off the crossbar.

Then less than 30 seconds later, Rebecca Holloway came up from the back an unleashed a stinging effort that Hodzic did well to beat away.

It took less than 60 seconds of the second half for the hosts to get the lead the deserved following their first half display.

Following a superb ball over the top from Beattie, Howe found herself with space to run into down the left flank - and although she would have been within her right to go for goal herself, the winger unselfishly squared the ball for Andrews to sidefoot past Hodzic from close range.

They doubled their lead right on the midway point of the second period as substitute Lauren Wade showed how clinical she is in front of goal.

Brenna McPartlan’s attempted through ball should have been cut out by visiting centre back Marija Milinkovic, but when she failed to control, Wade was onto it in a flash to power forward and drive her shot past Hodzic from 12 yards.

A professional performance from the side in green, who ended the group stages with three wins, a draw and two defeats - both to runaway winners Portugal.

Most importantly, it gives the team momentum going into the knockout stages play-offs.

MATCH STATS

Northern Ireland: Burns, McKenna, Dugdale, Rafferty (C), Holloway, McPartlan, Andrews, Halliday (Caldwell 67), Maxwell (Wade 57), Beattie, Howe (Wilson 90)

Subs not used: Perry (GK), Harvey-Clifford (GK), Vance, McCarron, Callaghan, Magill, Burrows, McDaniel,Hamilton

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Hodzic, Sliskovic (Veletanlic 85), Milinkovic, M Hasanbegovic, Spasojevic (Sabanagic 68), Aleksic (Husic 73), Nikolic (C), Ekic, Kapetanovic (Cule 85) Krso, Jelcic (Gacanica 68)

Subs not used: E Hasanbegovic (GK), Todoric (GK), Hrelja, Krajnic, Dizdarevic, Smajoc, Hadzic

Referee: Monika Mularczyk

Attendance: 2,216