Jack Moylan scored a 22-minute hat-trick on his Republic of Ireland debut as Heimir Hallgrimsson's side beat Grenada 5-0 in a friendly at Estadio Enrique Roca de Murcia.
Moylan, who helped Lincoln City earn promotion to the Championship, had an early warning shot six minutes in when he struck low and wide from outside the box and then saw a snapshot saved by Grenada goalkeeper Trishawn Thomas before the break. Adam Idah missed a gilt-edged chance just after the half-hour mark and Chiedozie Ogbene hit the post with an acrobatic effort shortly afterwards — blemishes that did little to stop the second-half flood.
The opener arrived 90 seconds after the restart when Will Ferry provided the low cross that Tom Cannon converted, and Cannon added a second eight minutes later to make it two goals in eight minutes at the start of the second half. Cannon’s brace set the tone for the newcomers who populated Hallgrimsson’s team.
Just after the hour mark Dara O'Shea headed the ball forward for Moylan to claim his first international goal. Moylan was slipped in by Andrew Moran to score again on 80 minutes, and four minutes later he completed the hat-trick from a Millenic Alli cross as the Republic finished 5-0.
The result underlined the attacking thrust of a side made up largely of players from the Championship or League One; the match also fell outside a designated Fifa window. Supplementary reports described Saturday’s friendly in Murcia as low-key — worthy of broadcast only on the RTÉ Player — and KFM Radio said Hallgrimsson himself noted nine players in the group had no national team cap.
The fixture supplied clear moments of weight beyond the broadcast label: a debutant delivering three goals inside 22 minutes, a pair of quickfire strikes from Cannon, and several other young players involved in the moves that produced goals. For Moylan, the night provided a sharp answer to the suggestion that the game was minor.
Tension in the result sits in that contrast. A match played outside the Fifa window, with much of the roster drawn from the second and third tiers and framed in advance as a fringe exercise, produced a headline performance that cannot be written off as routine. Hallgrimsson’s choices in Murcia included up-and-coming names noted by reporters — Millenic Alli, Andrew Moran, Aidomo Emakhu and even a 15-year-old, Rory Finneran — and the presence of nine uncapped players underlines how experimental the lineup was.
The substantive takeaway is simple: a low-profile friendly yielded a decisive win and a debutant hat-trick. The Republic of Ireland now head into friendlies against Qatar and Canada at the end of the month with Moylan carrying the momentum from Murcia and a manager who has fresh options to consider.
