Grey sky and persistent drizzle could not dampen the Manchester crowd's enthusiasm for one of England's most impressive and fluent performances. They completely overwhelmed the Northern Ireland side with a display of football that was pure delight.

The Irish offered plenty of pluck and never gave up but really there was only one team in it. The goals simply rained into the Irish net and poor Kelly in goal did not know what him.

After five minutes Jack Rowley sent Jack Froggatt away and then followed up to meet the centre smoothly to shoot home. Although Smyth and Tully set the England defence a few problems, when Tom Finney took a hold of the match in the 25th minute, the landslide began.

Playing one of his best-ever games he conjured up some sheer magic as he teased the whole Irish defence with the balance, poise, speed and footwork. Poor McMichael did not know which way to turn next. In that 25th minute, perfect footwork and controlled speed took Finney past three defenders on the right and Froggatt headed in the cross as clean as a whistle.

Within minutes the ball was off again, moving swiftly between Willie Watson, Finney, Billy Wright and Stan Mortensen before Stan Pearson joined in to add the finishing touch.

Hardly had the crowd had time to enjoy that little gem before they looked up to see Mortensen flying through the air to meet Finney's centre with a glorious header to make it 4-0 at half-time.

Rowley made it five a minute into the second half and shortly afterwards Kelly could only hear Mortensen's shot whizz past him. Smyth did pull one goal back for the Irish, but England were at full steam now, doing exactly what they liked, when they liked. Rowley scored two more goals, both of which had all the forwards helping in the build-up. The first 13 minutes of the second half had seen five goals.

A Finney headed pass to Pearson gave the England number nine the chance to score, appropriately, their ninth goal. Finally, a goal by Brennan, after a mistake by Neil Franklin, ended the scoring and an altogether extraordinary afternoon.
  

Jack Rowley, deputising for injured Jackie Milburn, hammered four goals against an Irish team that had gone down 8-2 against Scotland in their previous match. Pompey's Jack Froggatt scored on his debut. England Test cricketer Willie Watson won the first of four caps at right-half, and former amateur international Bernard Streten got his only full England call while playing in the Second Division with Luton. Fulham's Irish goalkeeper Hugh Kelly had to pick the ball out of his net 28 times in five successive international matches.
 

The match against Northern Ireland took place at Manchester on November 16th. The score of 9 goals to 2 in England's favour gives some idea of their complete superiority in all phases of the game. There were several changes in the English team from the one which beat Wales, Streten (Luton Town) replacing Williams in goal, Watson replacing Dickinson, and Rowley, Pearson and Froggatt entering the forward-line.
Five minutes from the start England had already established their ascendency when Rowley sent Froggatt away on the left and came up to sweep the winger's centre unerringly into the net. The Irish landslide, however, did not really begin till the 25th minute, when Finney placed a centre for Froggatt to head home. Ten minutes later a swift movement between Watson, Finney, Wright and Mortensen ended in a goal from Pearson, and very soon Mortensen added another.
Within five minutes of the resumption, England were six up with two more goals from Rowley and Mortensen. Ireland gallantly replied twice, but Rowley added two more goals and Pearson one to bring England's total to nine. It was the biggest international victory since 1899 - a brilliant display of a fast-moving scoring machine, though it must be added that the Irish defence was badly off form.