How Did Our International Stars Do

Rotherham United are getting ready for the final push of the season which will see our International players return to the New York Stadium.

Chieo Ogbene has again been influential for the Republic of Ireland. He came off the bench in the friendly at home to Latvia and just two minutes later scored the winning goal in the three-two win. He started the game at the Aviva Stadium against France on Monday in a European Championship qualifying game and although the Irish lads lost one-nil Chieo was easily the Man of the Match and told the BBC that they ‘have to take the positives from the game’ and not dwell on the defeat saying, ‘it is a massive boost when you can perform like we did against the best team who beat us with a spectacular goal.’

Last Thursday Northern Ireland travelled to San Marino for a European Championship Qualifying and included both Conor Washington and Shane Ferguson in the squad. Conor started in the two-nil win being subbed with just over twenty minutes to go while Shane came off the bench for the last fifteen minutes. Their game at Windsor Park at the weekend didn’t fair so well with Finland scoring the only goal of the game. Wash again started the game, lasting seventy minutes while Shane didn’t get any minutes in this game.

Millers’ ‘keeper Viktor Johansson got his first call-up for Sweden and in their two games was on the bench. Sweden played both games at home losing three-nil to Belgium and beating Azerbaijan five-nil a few days later.

New boy Bailey Wright who joined Rotherham from Sunderland on the final day of the January transfer window flew out to Australia to play in the Socceroos in a ‘homecoming’ series against Ecuador. Bailey was on the bench for their three-one win but played all ninety minutes in the next game, despite being in a collision just after the half-hour mark, which was a two-one loss.

Also out on International duty was our Leeds United loanee Leo Hjelde where he played the whole game for the Norway U21 side which lost to the Netherlands and started their game against Portugal, being subbed on the eighty-third minute in a game the also lost.

Thanks to MikeMiller for keeping us up to date with our international stars on our forum!