Gareth McAuley's brace and Kyle Lafferty's sixth goal of the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign gave Northern Ireland a 3-1 victory over the Faroe Islands and moved them to the verge of a place in France next summer.
McAuley headed the visitors ahead after 12 minutes but Joan Edmundsson equalised prior to the break in Torshavn following an error from Stuart Dallas.
However, Edmundsson was dismissed for two cautions after the hour and Michael O'Neill's men took full advantage, McAuley nodding in from another right-wing free-kick before Lafferty fired in a third.
With third-placed Hungary only drawing with previous leaders Romania, the Northern Irish moved to the top of Group F with three games remaining and victory over the Hungarians in Belfast on Monday would seal their passage to a major international tournament for the first time since the 1986 World Cup.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here