France survive scare while Netherlands ease past Gibraltar

Paris: France held on to beat Ireland 1-0 in Dublin on Monday to win their second Euro 2024 qualifier, while the Netherlands eased past Gibraltar 3-0.

Right-back Benjamin Pavard pounced with half an hour remaining at a sold-out Lansdowne Road before two superb Mike Maignan saves in the final two minutes. With 30 seconds to play in Dublin, AC Milan's Maignan, who has succeeded former captain Hugo Lloris as Les Bleus' goalkeeper, tipped over teammate Jules Kunde's panicked header. From the resulting corner Maignan saved the visitors' skin as he made a simi lar save from Nathan Collins' powerful effort.

Manchester City Centre back Nathan Ake scored twice in a little over half an hour as the Netherlands eased past 10-men Gibraltar, 200th in FIFA rankings in Rotterdam. Atletico Madrid forward Memphis Depay opened the scoring in the first half with a towering header before veteran Liam Walker was shown a red card the other side of the break.

In Group F, Sweden bounced back from a heavy opening defeat to Belgium by hammering Azerbaijan 5-0 in Solna.

Austria avoided an upset at home to beat Estonia 2-1 de- spite trailing after 25 minutes from a Rauno Sappinen effort. Cologne winger Florian Kainz opened his account for his country with 22 minutes to play before Michael Grego Ritsch completed the come- back with two minutes to go. Real Madrid's David Alaba ca- me off the bench after 46 minutes after Grego Ritsch has missed a first half penalty.

Dominik Szoboszlai superb free-kick set Hungary on their way to a 3-0 success over Bulgaria as they started their campaign clinically.

Elsewhere in Group G, Dusan Vlahovic's double were more than enough as Serbia beat Montenegro 2-0. In Group E, the Czech Republic were held 0-0 by lowly Moldova as Karol Swiderski scored his ninth goal in 21 internationals as Poland beat Albania 1-0 after losing to the Czechs on Friday.