NI showed great character in Wales draw - O'Neill

Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill praised the "character" of his side in Tuesday's 1-1 draw in Wales.

Both Wales and Northern Ireland lost their respective World Cup play-offs to set up the friendly that nobody wanted.

Jamie Donley scored a deserved opener but Wales hit back less than 60 seconds after the restart as Sorba Thomas tucked home.

Eoin Toal and Callum Marshall had chances to snatch victory, but it was the response to the equaliser which impressed O'Neill as his young side bounced back from the World Cup defeat by Italy with a solid performance in Cardiff.

"The team has good resilience because at the end of the day, as much as we sat deep and it was difficult for us to get out in the last 20 minutes, we still had an opportunity to win the game," O'Neill, who also hit back at concerns over a conflict of interest with his dual role with Blackburn Rovers.

"To come away, with the age profile of the team and where the team is at this minute at time, and not be beaten here was a real positive."

O'Neill added it was "a good night's work for us" as he "asked a huge amount" of young players in a second half that was littered with substitutions, but Northern Ireland deserved their draw in Cardiff.

He handed a debut to 19-year-old defender Tom Atcheson, who plays under him at Blackburn Rovers, but Liverpool's Kieran Morrison did not make his senior bow as O'Neill made eight substitutions.

"He's a very young player. I think he's shown up well in the camp all week," O'Neill said on Atcheson.

"We would have liked to have got Kieran Morrison on the pitch as well at some point, but you wouldn't have been able to do it without having to take a sub that you put on, off again, without asking someone to play in a position which was totally alien to them.

"Given the number of substitutions we made, we're pleased with the response we got from the players."