Four days previously the 19-year-old had made an error on his debut that led to Montenegro snatching a winner against the Republic.

“It’s great for the lad. It was a difficult debut for him in Montenegro,” said Givens.

“It was the first time he met a lot of the boys and it’s hard if things don’t go well for you early on and your confidence drops.

“I think he gave the ball away that led to the goal on Friday and he’s more than made up for it now.

“I’m delighted that we won. We got what we deserved. We were always wary of Bulgaria because they were very good technically. They had players who could hurt us.

“With 20 minutes to go the game got very stretched. We were attacking and they were breaking so I sent John-Joe O’Toole to sort that out really.

“He wasn’t sent on to be on the end of the cross but thank God he was there. He was sent on to steady things in the middle of the field because we were getting far too stretched.”

It was Ireland’s first win in the campaign and Givens believes it was long overdue.

“We got the breaks we didn’t get in the other games. If you miss chances it doesn’t mean you aren’t getting the breaks – you’re not doing your job,” he said.

“There have been times, such as the deflected goal against England, but this time things went for us.

“Not only did we score but we could have had a penalty given against us a bit earlier.”