Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Scotland all won their opening UEFA Women’s U-19 Championship qualifying group games on Wednesday.
Northern Ireland are hosting their mini-tournament and edged Wales 1-0 with a 73rd-minute Jessica Rae goal at Shamrock Park in Portadown. In the day’s other Group 5 game Norway thrashed Moldova 8-0. Wales return to the same venue to tackle Norway on Saturday at 2pm, while the Irish host Moldova at the Ballymena Showgrounds, 7.30pm kick off.
Scotland beat Bulgaria 4-0 as Brogan Moore’s first-half effort was added to by Rebecca McGowan, Aisha Maughan and substitute Hannah Scott. The next opponents in Group 4 for Scotland are Croatia on Saturday afternoon, they started with a 2-0 loss against Poland.
Group 9 Republic of Ireland were 2-0 winners over Ukraine with Jessica Ziu and Aoife Slattery their scorers. Next up for the Irish in Group 9 on Saturday is Montenegro.
Elsewhere, there were two 14-0 scorelines as Sweden overran Armenia and Spain crushed Kazakhstan.
