Flynn: We had to dig deep

11:10am Thursday 27th March 2008

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Bosnia-Herzegovina U21 1 - Wales U21 2

Wales Under-21 manager Brian Flynn admitted his team needed every ounce of their resilience to chisel a vital 2-1 European Championship victory against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Reading striker Simon Church came off the bench to equalise four minutes from time and Manchester City forward Ched Evans dramatically rifled home the winner two minutes later to deny a gutsy Bosnian outfit, who had led through Boubacar Dialiba Daibang's second-half strike.

The result means Wales remain firmly on track for the finals in Sweden next summer, and now require one victory over Romania from a double header in August and September to make October's play-offs.

Wales have not reached the final stages of a major tournament since the World Cup in Sweden in 1958, and a triumphant Flynn reflected: "Make no mistake, this was a huge result for us.

"I told the boys that we needed to come here and win and this is what we have done.

"No victory is easy away in Europe and we certainly made things difficult for ourselves.

"We didn't perform to the standard that I know that we are capable of. But Bosnia made it hard for us. They restricted us to three scoring chances and fortunately two of our efforts went into the net.'' Flynn continued: "I feared the worst at one point. But Simon Church did very well when he came on.

"We operate an 18-man squad and every one has played their part in taking us to the top of our qualification group.

"We now play Romania at Wrexham next and I can't wait for that. The pity of it is that this game falls into next season.'' Former Wrexham and Swansea boss Flynn expected a new-look Bosnia team to push his charges hard in Sarajevo.

"We have scored late goals throughout our qualification campaign - we were forced to do this in the away match in Malta and the home game against Bosnia,'' he added.

"You sometimes have to win ugly and that's what happened today. We made things difficult for ourselves at times but in the end, my side came through for me - I'm delighted.''