Eardley honoured with International debut

Last updated : 24 August 2007 By The Chairman
Neal Eardley made his full International debut for Wales when he came on at half time during the 1-0 midweek friendly win over Bulgaria. Eardley spoke of his honour at playing for his country and told Latics World, "It was a great honour to make my international debut, and to do it at such a young age can only benefit my future. Now I've come back to Oldham I just want to get my head down, work hard and hopefully get another call-up for the next game. I thought I had a good chance of getting on the bench and was always hoping to have some kind of involvement, and I went over there quite confident. I trained well and was told the day before that I had a good chance of getting on in the second half."

"I kept myself ready during the first half, and then five minutes before half time John told me I would be going on for the second half, which was a great feeling. I was nervous before I got on the pitch, but once I got out there I had a couple of good early touches and got into the game. I thought I did okay. We defended well against a decent team in Bulgaria. They have a lot of players who play in Europe in places like the Premier League, so to go out there and win with a young side against an experienced team like Bulgaria was good for us."