Cardiff City mauve and yellow army.

Following the drama and tension of Thursday night’s game with Austria with a hastily arranged home friendly against a Czech Republic side that had bowed out of the World Cup when they were pipped by a single Swedish goal in extra time in their Play Off Semi Final did not appear to be a good way of building on the feelgood factor in Welsh football – especially when you also consider that we had played the Czechs twice in our qualifying group.

However, as international friendlies go, this was one of the better ones with both sides competing well . You had to admire the attitude of the Czech Republic side – I thought they’d be needing this game like a hole in the head, but, if that were true, you’d never have guessed it given the way approached the match.

Certainly, the visitors deserved their lead when it came around the half an hour mark, but they kept it no more than two minutes and, after that, Wales seemed the more dangerous team to me – in the end, I’d say a 1-1 draw was about right as a Welsh team with ten changes from Thursday’s starting eleven managed to take our unbeaten home run to eighteen games.

So, credit to Wales as well for matching a team that kept the changes to their starting line up from their World Cup qualifier Semi Final to five.

The one Wales player who started both of this International break’s fixtures was Wayne Hennessy who followed Chris Gunter and Gareth Bale to one hundred caps and had the honour of captaining the side to mark the occasion.

Will Vaulks won his first cap for three years in midfield with Joe Morrell and City’s representation was doubled with Rubin Colwill playing as a withdrawn number nine between wingers Brennan Johnson and Rabbi Matondo.

Ten changes would have knocked the stuffing out of Welsh squads from not too long ago, but this one has the strength in depth that, for now at least, means that they can put out a useful reserve side which, to all intents and purposes, is what they did today.

The goals came in a rush with the Czech’s gaining a reward for a dominant half an hour against a home team that were having Cardiff City like ball retention problems. The goal was a good one with Lingi exploiting his side’s distinct height advantage by nodding down Zeleny’s cross into the path of captain Tomas Soucek stood unmarked some fifteen yards out and the West Ham man was able to hook the ball in expertly well wide of Hennessy.

Wales had showed little in attack up to then apart from one or two encouraging signs from Matondo and Johnson on the flanks, but, like so many home play maker types on this ground, Colwill had struggled to get a kick as the midfielders and defenders behind him struggled to provide him with any ball.

Vaulks had began his first Wales game in three years by miscontrolling the ball just outside his own penalty area and lunging in to give away a free kick in a dangerous position – something which I’m sure prompted similar knowing looks from other City fans besides me. To be fair though, he and Morrell did improve gradually and for the last hour, their side’s front three were growing factors in the game.

That said, the Welsh equaliser straight after Soucek’s opener came from a routine long ball from the back by Chris Gunter which was turned into a defence splitting pass by Johnson’s pace and awareness. The Forest winger generally had the beating of his marker Brabec throughout and here he burst clear down the right and then impressively picked out the onrushing Colwill who made the chance look easier than it was with a composed finish past the helpless keeper Stanek from about twelve yards to become the first player in this Welsh starting line up to have an international goal to his name.

Vaulks almost made it a City double just before the interval with the first of two unusual efforts which hit the woodwork. This was a shot hit on the slide from twenty yards after being fed by Matondo which hit the outside of a post and flew wide and the same happened with a Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb type effort soon after the restart that turned out to be a lot closer to goal then it first looked like being – what was clear from both shots was that even from awkward positions and mishits, Vaulks can get a lot of power into his shooting and it’s a little odd that this hasn’t produced a goal for him yet this season.

With Welsh man of the match Johnson rampant down the right, Matondo carrying his improved club form into international football and Colwill increasingly finding those areas of space in front of an opposition defence where he can do his best work, the Welsh front three, with their average age of twenty, carried more of a threat than any forward combination the Czech Republic could come up with – the visitors continued to have the occasional opportunity notably when Sykora also struck the woodwork, but it was Wales who now carried the greater threat with Johnson, who struck up promising looking partnership with Colwill as the game went on, twice and Chris  Mepham coming close to getting a winner on a night when the positives outweighed the negatives for Rob Page’s men.

At the levels below the seniors, it’s not really been a good break for the various Welsh age group sides, the under 21s continued what has turned into a disappointing Euros campaign with a 5-1 loss in Switzerland which, from the bits I saw of the game, was as comprehensive as the score suggests and then a 1-1 home draw yesterday against a Bulgaria side they had beaten 4-0 earlier in the group phase.

The under 17s had a bit of a disaster, conceding two fives and a four in losing to Slovenia, Turkey and Serbia (the last by 4-2 after being 2-0 up with an hour played) to finish bottom of their Elite Group mini tournament, but at least the under 18s did better, winning the first of their pair of friendly matches with Finland 4-2 before drawing the second 2-2 with City’s James Crole getting one of the goals.