Ireland U-21 - 3 Bulgaria U-21 - 2: Paddy McCarthy scored a late, late winner as the Republic of Ireland, mainly inspired by Aiden McGeady on his debut, stretched their unbeaten run to 12 games. Ireland knocked the ball around with the composure of a side unbeaten in 16 months.

They were a goal up after nine minutes. Already capped at senior level, McGeady was involved in the opening goal and provided the crosses for the others. Liam Kearney collected McGeady's pass and, though the Cork City winger miscued his cross, the ball fell kindly on the edge of the area for Stephen Elliott who swivelled to find the bottom corner of Emil Petrov's net.

Utterly dominant, Ireland were given the wake-up call of a let-off on 37 minutes as the Bulgarians came within inches of equalising. Ireland's defence stood indicted for not picking up the run of Kostadin Hazurov who powered a header just over the bar from Zhivkov Milanov's left wing cross.

The action soon reverted to the other end, however, as Petrov got down well to palm McGeady's cross out for a corner. On the blow of half-time, Anton Zergilov cleared after John Fitzgerald couldn't direct his header goalward.

Don Givens made three changes at the break which disrupted Ireland and the Bulgarians got back into the match on 55 minutes when a super ball from the right by Ivan Stoyanov was turned into the net by Dimitr Rangelov. Rangelov almost scored again when drilling wide from a Dimo Atanasov lay-off while McCarthy had to hack clear from Stoyanov before Ireland regained their lead on 71 minutes.

McGeady, who had flitted in and out of the game since half-time, came to life to whip over a sublime cross and substitute Jay Tabb scored his first goal for his country with a downward header.

Rangelov levelled again from a 82nd minute penalty after Sean Thornton pulled down Zhivkov Milanov. But McGeady's superb free-kick in from the left was met with a header from McCarthy to net the winner for Ireland.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Henderson (Aston Villa); McStay (Leeds Utd), McCarthy (Manchester City), Fitzgerald (Blackburn Rovers), Capper (Scarborough); McGeady (Celtic), Whelan (Sheffield Wed), Potter (Liverpool), Kearney (Cork City); Doyle (Cork City), Elliott (Sunderland). Subs: Murphy (Swansea) for Henderson, Thornton (Sunderland) for Kearney and Tabb (Brentford) for Doyle (all half-time), Flood (Manchester City) for Potter (66 mins), Kendrick (Darlington) for Capper (75 mins).

BULGARIA: Petrov; Diakov, Venkov, Milanov, Zergilov, Palankov, Stefano, Hazurov, Rangelov, Zlatinov, Trifonov. Subs: Atanasov and Zakov for Trifonov and Hazurov (both at half-time), Tzenovski for Palankov (72 mins), Dimitrov for Zergilov (79 mins), Kakalov for Rangleov (88 mins).

Referee: C Richmond (Scotland).