Impressive Wales helped on their way to Play Off Final by madcap defending.

Easy for me to say now I know, but I always thought Wales would beat Finland in their Euros Play Off Semi Final tonight at Cardiff City Stadium, but I’ve been equally sure that Poland would beat Estonia in the other Semi (they did, by 5-1 after the Estonians had a player sent off in the first half) and then go on to beat us in Cardiff in Tuesday’s Final.

What I didn’t predict was that Wales would have matched the Polish winning score were it not for a goal by Ben Davies being ruled out, harshly in my opinion, by VAR for a foul by Joe Rodon on the Finnish goalkeeper and captain Lukas Hradecky.

I’m sure Robert Page and his team would have taken a scrappy 0-0 and a winning penalty shoot out beforehand, so 4-1 will do very nicely in a game which, in some ways, was similar to so much of what we’ve seen this season from the team that use the ground far more often.

Like Cardiff City, Wales were happy to concede possession (59/41 in Finland’s favour) and invite the opposition on to them as they looked to hit them on the break. I said that “in some ways” Wales were similar to Cardiff City in their approach – scrap that, they were similar in just one way, as outlined above, then the differences became crystal clear.

With City, we’re almost back to the bad old days of Russell Slade where I swear we would deliberately play for corners and free kicks when in promising situations because we had a far better chance of scoring from them – City under Erol Bulut are a counter attacking team who cannot counter attack effectively.

By complete contrast, Wales looked dangerous every time they attacked , they started with three skilful and nippy forwards in Harry Wilson, Brennan Johnson and David Brooks and they were backed up by Neco Williams and Connor Roberts at wing back who were eager to get forward all night and later what was, by then a bedraggled Finland defence had to face the aerial strength of Keiffer Moore and the speed of Dan James whose confidence must have been boosted by the dozen goals he’s scored for Leeds this season.

Wales were good going forward tonight, but they were helped by a Finnish defence that was shambolic to start with and then got worse as the match went on. With that in mind, it might have been that Wales became more willing to concede possession and territory to the Finns for much of the first half especially because they’d seen how easily they opened them up as early as the third minute and thought the chances would inevitably come for more goals and a victory if they didn’t do anything silly at the back.

In the last game Wales played in Cardiff, the must win final match in their qualifying group against Turkey, they got off to a fast start as Williams put them in front in the seventh minute but tonight it took them just over a third of that time to hit the front as the three forwards combined to great effect. Wilson played a one two with Johnson to leave him with a shooting chance from twelve yards which Hradecky was able to palm out, but only into the path of Brooks who volleyed in from about ten yards..

So, right from the start really, the nerves which could have ended up defining Wales’ night if it had got to, say, an hour without a breakthrough were absent to a large degree. That’s not to say mind that Finland’s ability to move the ball around neatly at times in areas too close to the Welsh goal for comfort did not cause some alarms. Daniel Hakans passed up a couple of reasonable opportunities by not making the best of contacts on both occasions and Chris Mepham gave the ball away in a dangerous area only for Teemu Pukki to surprisingly not take advantage as he ran the ball out of play.

Up the other end though, the front three were showing that they often had the beating of their opponents in one on one situations and the Finnish defenders were forced to resort to fouls to keep the Welsh forwards at bay.

One such example saw Johnson brought down just outside the penalty area on thirty eight minutes and what followed was highly unusual these days, but, on this occasion, effective.

When I were a lad, it was the norm for free kicks within shooting distance to be tapped to the player taking the shot. I suppose the intention back in those days when the football was not as manoeuvrable as it is today was to create an angle which gave the shooter more chance of avoiding the wall – I dare say defences are out quicker to block shots these days, so the tap to a colleague only gives you less time to get the shot away. This time though, Wilson backheeled the ball no more than one or two feet into the path of Williams whose right footed shot flew well beyond Hradecky into the top corner of the net.

Part of me thought that was game over, but, with the forty five minutes almost up what at first looked like a blunder involving Mepham and Rodon ended up leaving Pukki clear to go on and easily beat Danny Ward, but replays showed that, in fact, it was a nice short pass by Joel Pohjanpalo that split the two defenders to bring the visitors right back into contention.

Half time came and went with a suspicion that Wales could be in danger of chucking away a great chance to make the Final, but, just as in the first half, the home side were able to strike early.

In fact, it was even earlier into the half than Brooks’ goal had been. Barely ninety seconds had elapsed when Ethan Ampadu won a header on the far post from a Wilson free kick and picked out Brooks stood not much further out than he had been for his goal, but this time he rather scuffed his shot and it bobbled into the path of the unmarked Johnson who tapped in from no more than four yards.

My first reaction was that Johnson was offside, but luck was on Wales’ side because a defender had fallen to the floor when challenging Ampadu for the header and was playing the scorer on. It was an unfortunate goal for the Finns to concede, but more poor defending meant that it should have been hard for any neutral to be that sympathetic – they’d lost the first ball and then left two Welshmen free within ten yards of their goal.

Finland came forward as they had done before the break, but I thought there a lot less conviction in their play now – conceding that third goal so soon in the second half rather knocked the stuffing out of them and it was Wales who had the best opportunities to add to the game’s goal tally in the forty odd minutes that remained..

Wilson and Moore, on for Brooks, had presentable chances that the former put wide and the latter put too close to the goalkeeper and there was the Davies disallowed goal as well.

James came on to replace Johnson and was soon forcing Hradecky into a save, but he was not to be denied as the Finns gifted Wales a fourth when Miro Tenho made a complete mess of what was no more than a long ball forward to no one in particular by Jordan James. Tenho’s clanger left Dan James with a run in on goal and he took the ball around the keeper and slid it in to complete what was an impressive and mature Welsh display.

Nowhere was that maturity shown more than in midfield where Jordan James again had me thinking why on earth does he spend so much time on the bench in a poor Birmingham team, but it was Ampadu alongside him who really shone as he seems to be benefiting from the captaincy of Leeds and , for a change, is playing for a club team that is expecting to win every week – it was a very impressive fiftieth cap performance for someone who is looking like Wales’ most important player currently.