James Weldon’s charges are ranked 84th in the world but beat a side 29 places above them in the rankings with Hazel Finn leading the way with 16 points.

The Mayo woman was top scorer for Ireland as Edel Thorton and Sarah Hickey also contributed 15 each to seal a first win since a 2021 semi-final in the European Championship for Small Countries.

Weldon relished this victory after ending a run that had seen controversy when facing Israel and a 101-point defeat to France.

“It’s incredible. We’ve gone through so much in the last number of years, the near misses, the controversial stuff,” he said.

“We were so disappointed on Wednesday [with defeat to Luxembourg], we were so disappointed with ourselves. The players took ownership of it themselves and we said at the start of the week that we

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