Ireland lost 2-1 to Wales after earlier winning all their games in a six-a-side international tournament, played on a round robin basis, for former international players, in Manchester.
For the purpose of the tournament, the Irish squad was selected on an island-wide basis and included Northern Ireland players, Jim Platt, Jim Nichol, Sammy McIlroy and Kevin Wilson.
The other players in the 11-man squad were Paul McGrath, Kevin Moran, Ray Houghton, Kevin Sheedy, Frank Stapleton, John Aldridge and Bernie Slaven.
Slaven, later named player of the tournament, gave the Irish the lead but two goals from Ian Rush enabled Wales to record an unexpected success. A feature of the tournament was the consistently high level of performance of McGrath, who was playing competitively for the first time since his testimonial game last year.
There was little evidence now of the knee injuries which troubled him on that occasion and together with Moran and Stapleton, he was one of the better players for Ireland.
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