Hungary 0

In the annual reviews to come soon, Ireland’s women’s team will have demonstrated to their male counterparts how to win matches without performing.

This fifth straight win in the campaign should have been straightforward but sluggishness from the outset meant it took a bizarre own-goal by Henrietta Csiszar with 25 minutes left to seal the points.

On a chilly night when Christmas fever was finally felt, this was an early gift Ireland were happy to accept.

Embattled chief executive Jonathan Hill could even afford a smile sitting up in the stand, buoyed by earlier news that state support was no longer frozen like the weather.

Another victory over Northern Ireland on Tuesday at Windsor Park will complete the perfect half dozen and yet there was scant evidence from this that next year’s European qualifiers won’t be a challenge.

Promotion to that top tier was secured in the least glamorous of settings last month; North Albania staging a game engulfed by rainstorms that left players kicking puddles and wondering if it would be completed.

Denise O’Sullivan’s 20th international goal was the only positive piece to extract from that sodden night and Gleeson got the point by making four changes for this next assignment.

Out went Diane Caldwell, Erin McLaughlin, Abbie Larkin and Sinead Farrelly, with the quarter replaced by wing-backs Izzy Atkinson and Heather Payne along with Ruesha Littlejohn and Megan Connolly.

The latter was posited in the defensive role she’s begun the season with new club Bristol City in and it was her deadball repertoire, especially from corners, that Ireland mobilised in their attacking weaponry.

Katie McCabe, thrust into her preferred attacking berth, was the other source of set-pieces and the esteem she’s held in was evident early on when cheers rang out as she ventured towards the corner flags.

Unfortunately, neither creator was able to deliver the killer ball in the first half to perforate a shaky defence. As predicted by Gleeson, The Magyars were undaunted by the task of visiting the group victors, operating with a freedom they seldom displayed in the first meeting of the nations.

Ireland had pocketed half of their four goals by the break in Budapest, the breakthrough coming from the head of Caitlin Hayes for her first international goal.

Her aerial threat was again sought to get the spree going but she was badly profligate with the one sight on goal the defender got.

Before that, Kyra Carusa spotted a marginal one on 11 minutes when she pounced upon an errand backpass by Laura Kovács to round the onrushing Réka Szőcs. Though the goal was gaping, she opted to strike swiftly without carrying the accuracy to angle the ball to the right side of the post.

O’Sullivan also got in range between two defenders, yet couldn’t steer her header on target.

There was a clearer opportunity for the Corkwoman to come – the clearest of the half – when more risky passing in dangerous areas by the Hungarians allowed Heather Payne to slip in O’Sullivan with nine minutes of the half remaining. The angle was tight and Szőcs stood firm to deny the attacker’s low shot with her feet.

Not that Ireland had it all their way. Before Csiszar stole the show as villain, she was almost the hero by ghosting past Connolly from the right and firing a rising shot that veered over. The underworked Brosnan had got the slightest of touches to divert for a corner, highlighting how slackness by Ireland might have cost them.

Three minutes before the break, Hayes had to pick her spot from Connolly’s corner, only to hang her header beyond the far post.

The defender, who only declared for Ireland in time for this campaign, was better in her execution eight minutes after the interval from a replica move.

A one-hand signal from Connolly promised what form the corner would take and her header connection was dipping towards the corner until Hanna Németh intervened by glancing it over the crossbar.

Hungary’s young and naïve rearguard were feeling the strain of being dragged out of position and all they could muster by way of threat was a speculative 35-yard lob from substitute Emoke Papai that Courtney Brosnan read all the way by retreating to catch out of the night sky.

It wasn’t long before a blunder by her opposite custodian proved decisive. There was little danger when Payne drifted in from the right and sent in an innocuous cross that Szőcs could easily have gathered six yards out.

Instead, she somehow got distracted and fumbled the ball from her grasp back towards her line. The hapless Csiszar, in a desperate attempt to clear, only succeeded in steering the ball across her own line.

Once ahead, there was little guile to conjure a response. Next year will be a different story but possessing the tools to prevail when patterns don’t suggest it must be embraced.

IRELAND (3-4-2-1): C Brosnan; C Hayes, L Quinn, M Connolly; H Payne, T Toland (S Farrelly 65), R Littlejohn (Lucy Quinn 57), I Atkinson (J Finn 57); D O’Sullivan, K McCabe; K Carusa.

HUNGARY (4-4-1-1): R Szocs; L Kovacs (B Vida 72), L Turanyi, H Nemeth, D Nemeth; L Papp, H Csiszar, D Zeller, E Fenvyesi (E Papai 46); V Szabo; F Vachter (B Zagor 46).

Ref: Shona Shukrula (NED).

Attendance: 6,752.