{"id":7890,"date":"2026-05-29T08:02:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/7890\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:02:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:02:36","slug":"tennis-ball-protest-against-israel-games-as-10-man-republic-grind-out-win-over-qatar-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/7890\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis ball protest against Israel games as 10-man Republic grind out win over Qatar \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

International friendly: Republic of Ireland 1 Qatar 0<\/p>\n

TENNIS balls rained down from the stand and Ireland won comfortably despite playing with 10 men for the entire second half on Thursday night. The Republic looked the better team throughout a fairly tame affair but, frustratingly, it\u2019s Qatar who are off to the World Cup. <\/p>\n

A thumping fifth-minute header from Nathan Collins extended Ireland\u2019s unbeaten run to seven games against a Qatar side that did force one brilliant save from Caoimhin Kelleher who dived to his left to keep out a deflected shot after an hour. <\/p>\n

That apart, they offered very little but they have bigger fish to fry beginning with their World Cup opener against Switzerland in California on June 13.<\/p>\n

\"Munster<\/a>\"Ulster<\/a><\/p>\n

The tennis balls were thrown by a small but determined group of pro-Palestine protesters at the 10 and 20-minute mark in protest at the Republic\u2019s forthcoming Nations League games against Israel. <\/p>\n

The game was halted on both occasions and after play resumed Ireland had Jack Moylan, provider for Collins\u2019s goal, sent off. The Lincoln City forward had done well but dived into a tackle too recklessly for referee Jamie Robinson and was shown a harsh red card.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was the wrong decision \u2013 a mistake from the referee,\u201d said manager Heimir Hallgrimsson.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all make mistakes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was really pleased with Jack, it was a big loss for us. It\u2019s not a low for Jack, it\u2019s a mistake from somebody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cLets see how he starts the next season but the potential is there 100 per cent. It was tough for Seamus (Coleman) and (Liam) Scales to do the up-and-down running (after the red card) for the whole game. But it was a good test, a good display.\u201d <\/p>\n

There was much less doubt about the Almoez Ali red card. He was dismissed for elbowing Jayson Molumby just before the final whistle but Ireland were in control by that stage and Hallgrimsson was also able to cap three new players including Jaden Umeh who looked lively in the closing stages.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a confident kid,\u201d said Hallgrimsson.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe showed he can play the position we asked him and in possession he is electric and he has that cockiness and belief in himself. Potentially he can be one of the big ones in the future, let\u2019s just hope he continues his development.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International friendly: Republic of Ireland 1 Qatar 0 TENNIS balls rained down from the stand and Ireland won…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3779,2481,3778,28],"class_list":["post-7890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-nathan-collins","tag-qatar","tag-republic-of-ireland","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}