Sammy McI|lroy saw his makeshift Northern Ireland side give an encouraging show to draw 0-0 with Cyprus at Windsor Parklast night, despite the controversial omission of captain Neil Lennon.

The Celtic midfielder withdrew from the team after receiving a death threat in the hours leading up to the match.

While he was heading back to Glasgow, Northern Ireland should have gone on and sealed the victory their performance deserved in this friendly.

Irish Football Association chiefs angrily denounced those who forced Lennon out of last night's game. Association president Jim Boyce said he fully respected the player's decision.

But he added: "This is just unbelievable. It is a terrible blight once again on society in Northern Ireland especially when you think of the efforts made by the Irish Football Association to stamp this sort of thing out."

Tottenham youngster Simon Davies scored the goal of his life last night - but it was not enough to clinch Wales a morale-boosting win in Varazdin, Croatia.

And sadly there is now a question mark over goalkeeper Paul Jones, who looked shaky all night, and blundered 12 minutes from time to gift Croatia a face-saving equaliser.

Davies struck in the first half, holding off several Croatian challenges in a strong run before scoring his first senior international goal.

And from then on Wales's patched up side fought magnificently against the world's 26th-ranked side, who competed in this summer's World Cup.

Berti Vogts's managerial debut at Hampden Park saw his inexperienced Scotland side given the runaround by Denmark.

An early Ebbe Sand goal turned out to be the only one of the night but in reality the Scots were fortunate it was not followed by many more.

Vogts has tasted nothing but defeat since succeeding Craig Brown in April - a 4-0 win over a Hong Kong League XI is recognised solely by the Scottish Football Association as a meaningful fixture - and the German knows the sequence must stop here.