Euro 2016: Wales cruise

Wales forward Gareth Bale plays with his daughter Alba Viola after the win over Northern Ireland at the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris. (Photo: AFP)

Northern Ireland’s Gareth McAuley scored a heart-breaking own goal to hand British rivals Wales a 1-0 victory in Paris on Saturday that sent them into the Euro 2016 quarter-finals.

In a cagey contest, Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland largely succeeded in muzzling Gareth Bale, but the Real Madrid star produced a wicked 75th-minute cross that the hapless McAuley turned into his own net.

The West Bromwich Albion centre-back’s unwitting intervention allowed Wales to reach the last eight, just as they did on their last major tournament appearance at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.

Chris Coleman’s side will play either Belgium or Hungary in Lille on Friday for a place in the semi-finals.

With no former major tournament winners in Wales’s half of the draw, they will advance believing they can create a sensation.

Coleman went with an unchanged team but Northern Ireland provided vastly more disciplined opposition, sitting in a low bloc and looking to attack on the break.

It obliged Bale, the tournament’s joint-top scorer, to move out to the right in search of the ball and aside from a mishit shot that flew well wide, he scarcely offered a threat in the first half.

Instead it was Northern Ireland who procured the few sights of goal, Stuart Dallas testing Wayne Hennessey at his near post.

Wales had the ball in the net in the 19th minute, but Aaron Ramsey was clearly offside as he moved in to toe Sam Vokes’s header past Northern Ireland’s redoubtable goalkeeper Michael McGovern.

Wales began to show a sharper cutting edge in the second period, Vokes heading wide from Ramsey’s deep cross and Bale drawing a parry from McGovern with one of his trademark, dipping free-kicks.

After a spell of Welsh possession, Ramsey slipped a pass to Bale, who whipped a devilish cross into the six-yard box from the left.

In trying to prevent the ball reaching Robson-Kanu, the hapless McAuley could only toe the ball into his own net.