Martin O’Neill praises James McClean after his brace beats Moldova

Martin O’Neill saluted James McClean after the West Brom winger’s double handed the Republic of Ireland World Cup qualifier victory in Moldova.

McClean scored twice inside seven second-half minutes to secure a 3-1 Group D win at the Stadionul Zimbru on a night when the Moldovans, who are ranked 130 places below Ireland, threatened to claim their first point of the campaign.

O’Neill said: “James is a whole-hearted player, as you know. He puts everything into the match, absolutely everything.

“When Callum O’Dowda came over to play on the left side, James came over to play right-hand side and ended up getting himself into more goal-scoring positions perhaps than before, and that’s great.

“And he’s also not neglecting the work going backwards, so maybe he can do that.”

The visitors dominated possession but failed to build upon their early lead and were made to pay on the stroke of half-time when striker Igor Bugaev too advantage of slack defending to race from his own half and beat goalkeeper Darren Randolph.

However, McClean eventually came to the rescue, tucking a neat 69th-minute shot into the bottom corner after Jonathan Walters had teed him up, and then volleying home from skipper Seamus Coleman’s cross with 14 minutes remaining.

O’Neill, whose side are now level on seven points with Serbia at the top of the pool, said: “I’m delighted with the performance.

“We scored early on – it was great, Shane’s goal, fantastic. We maybe – I was nearly going to say put the game beyond them, but we maybe had a couple of chances to go further in the lead.

“It didn’t happen and then we had a real, real lapse in concentration in the last minute before half-time. But we put it right in the second half and it was great to win.

“It’s tight, it’s really tight, but it is nice for us to win.

“We have one more game before Christmas, playing (in Austria) in November, and by the time that game is complete, one way or the other, we will have played three matches away from home and (there will be) everything to play for in 2017.”