Heimir Hallgrimsson banked his first home win as Ireland boss but revealed he was ‘not jumping for joy’ about it.

Evan Ferguson headed Ireland’s winner on the stroke of half-time and Caoimhin Kelleher saved a late penalty, while Finland also hit the post twice.

And Hallgrimsson feels Ireland will need to be much better if they are to stand any chance of qualifying for the World Cup in 2026.

“We’re not jumping with joy,” he said. “We could have done much better than we did. It was enough to win and that’s a good thing but we need a lot of work to progress.

“If we want to qualify for the World Cup we need to win against teams higher than us and get points from them, but with this performance, we probably wouldn’t do that.”

Hallgrimsson continued: “It’s good to have a win for the spirit and these players need to experience it as often as they can, but I’m under no illusions we need to improve.

Hallgrimsson praised Kelleher for his brilliant penalty save to secure the win and feels he is carrying his solid Liverpool form onto the international stage.

It was particularly sweet for the Cork man after the howler he made in Athens last month to gift Greece a goal.

“Football is a team sport until the goalkeeper makes a mistake and it becomes an individual sport but he really answered it today,” added the Ireland boss.

“When you’re playing this good you really cement your place in the coach's mind and we are lucky to have a good goalkeeper playing so well.

“And Evan Ferguson was really good too. He used the ball really well when he had it and made smart passes.

“He’s just a clever player and everyone sees he’s getting fitter and more minutes at his club. When he’s fully fit he will score goals.”

Ireland play England at Wembley on Sunday and Hallgrimsson admits it is a free hit for his team as they avoided relegation and will instead contest the March playoff.

“These were always two very different games,” he continued: “We said Finland was the most important one and we have the three points.

“That means we can be a bit more relaxed going into the England game. It’s still important for FIFA points, but has no meaning in terms of position in the group.”

But Hallgrimsson feels his team were too aggressive in wanting to start well and admits Ireland’s press needs some work.

“We were unhappy with the first half in Finland and Greece, but in the second-half we only played well when there was nothing to lose.

“So tonight, everyone wanted to be aggressive from the beginning and that resulted in being over aggressive and jumping out and being out of shape - it opened the team.

“Finland are an experienced team and once we gave them options, they took them. But on the ball, we did things well.

“We had good attacking moments. It was Jekyll and Hyde but I’m happy with the energy we showed over the 90 minutes. We just need to be smarter in the basics.”

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