FREDDY Eastwood put aside his frustration at club level to display his goalscoring prowess in Wales' friendly victory in Luxembourg last night.
Eastwood has not started a Wolves game since Boxing Day, but relished the chance to play for Wales
and bagged a goal in each half to complete a comfortable win.
Wales have now gone five matches undefeated and lost just three times in their past 16, but this did not require one of their better performances.
John Toshack took his new caps tally to 29 in 32 matches with Boaz Myhill, Owain Tudur-Jones and Ashley Williams making their debuts. But Eastwood stole the show with two clinical finishes as Wales strolled to victory in the Stade Josy Barthel.
Fulham's Simon Davies put aside for one night his club's Premier League plight to captain the side and win his 50th cap, only the 26th man in Welsh football history to reach that total.
The Fifa rankings have these two countries 101 places apart, but Luxembourg came into the match with a rare streak of confidence after their first competitive victory in 12 years, a 1-0 win over Belarus.
A lack of communication between Williams and goalkeeper Lewis Price almost allowed Alphonse Leweck, scorer of that winner against Belarus, to profit from an under-hit back pass, and it was not until the 15th minute that Wales managed their first shot when Carl Fletcher drove over from 20 yards.
Eastwood was booked for a tackle from behind on Mario Mutsch after 17 minutes before Lewin Nyatanga had an effort disallowed for offside from a Jason Koumas free-kick.
Jermaine Easter and Eastwood struggled for an understanding up front, but eventually Wales took the lead after 37 minutes.
Eastwood took a cross-field pass from Koumas and forced his way into the box, side-stepping opponents before firing his low effort into the far corner past Jonathan Joubert, for his third goal in seven internationals.
At the break Wales sent on Hull keeper Myhill for his debut, while Swansea's injury-jinxed midfielder Tudur-Jones also came on for his long-awaited first cap in place of Easter.
And two minutes into the second period Wales were two up. Davies got away on the right to fire in a low cross for Eastwood to slam the ball confidently past Joubert.
Luxembourg: Joubert, Lang (Peters 66), Kintziger, Hoffmann, Wagner, Leweck (Da Mota Alves 66), Strasser, Joachim (Kitenge 66), Remy, Mutsch, Oberweis. Subs not used: Bigard, Collette, Lucic, Ferreira, Scholer. Booked: Strasser.
Wales: Price (Myhill 46), Eardley (Duffy 64), Ricketts, Williams, Morgan, Nyatanga, Eastwood, Fletcher (Cotterill 74), Koumas (Nardiello 84), Simon Davies, Easter (Tudur-Jones 46). Subs not used: Stock, Roberts. Booked: Morgan.
Referee: B Kuipers (Hol). Att: 3,000
The full article contains 478 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
