Northern Ireland were handed a “dose of reality” last night following their 1-0 defeat at the hands of Canada.

The only goal of the game came on 32 minutes when Canadian striker Olivier Occean took advantage of some poor marking to head home.

Though a few minutes earlier things were looking up for Northern Ireland when Gabriel Gervais was sent off for two yellow card offences following fouls on Keith Gillespie and David Healy.

However, for the 11,000 brave supporters who turned up expecting to see a repeat of Northern Ireland’s last home game when they drew 3-3 with Austria, the home performance turned out to be as dreary as the weather. Time after time crosses were wasted and numerous chances were squandered in front of the Canadian goal. On two separate occasions Aaron Hughes and Steve Jones hit the woodwork while top goal scorer David Healy headed wide from just six yards out.

Manager Lawrie Sanchez said he had no excuses for the lacklustre performance.

"Our fans and sometimes our players believe their own press, but this was a dose of reality," said Sanchez. "There was no invention in the box. We played to our ranking."

If anything can be taken away from Wednesday night’s game, it was the positive performance of Aston Villa midfielder Steve David who, barring injury, will start next months game against England and the daunting task of withstanding the inevitable onslaught from messers Lampard, Beckham, Rooney and co in front of 67,000 fans on March 26.

(MB/SP)