Robert Page revels in ‘unbelievable feeling’ after guiding Wales to World Cup

Robert Page reflected on “an unbelievable feeling” after guiding Wales to a first World Cup appearance for 64 years.

Wales secured a 1-0 victory at the Cardiff City Stadium after Gareth Bale’s 34th-minute free-kick was headed into his own net by Andriy Yarmolenko.

Wales goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey took the man-of-the-match honours with an outstanding display that kept the gifted Ukrainians at bay.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Page said. “It was a stressful game. I thought Ukraine were excellent.

“We knew we had to be at our complete best to get the result, and we had to dig deep at times. I am proud of the players and the supporters.

“It’s massive for the nation. There will be people partying in Cardiff tonight until the early hours tomorrow, and rightly so.

Gary Speed started this 12 years ago, and I want to dedicate that to Gary as well.- Robert Page

“I’ve just said to the senior players that the one thing they’ve had missing from their CV is a World Cup tournament.

“Gary Speed started this 12 years ago, and I want to dedicate that to Gary as well.

“He started the culture. There was a change, the environment completely changed. Chris Coleman took it on to another level, and I’ve inherited that group.

“We are just confident going into games now. We don’t hope to qualify for the World Cup or Euros now, we believe we can do it, so there’s been a massive change in the mentality as well.

“It’s encouraging, it’s good, we are going in the right direction. We need to continue to develop these young players that we have done for the last few years, and it’s only going to get better for us.

“We are growing in confidence game by game. I didn’t see this as a miracle tonight. It is not unusual for us to qualify for major