The sky’s the limit for Nathan Collins after Beckenbauer moment, says Dara O’Shea

Dara O’Shea has told Republic of Ireland team-mate Nathan Collins the sky is the limit after witnessing his Beckenbauer moment against Ukraine at close hand.

The 21-year-old Burnley defender stunned the LKS Stadium in the Polish city of Lodz on Tuesday evening when he rekindled memories of West Germany great Franz Beckenbauer by striding forward in imperious form and evading three challenges before firing Ireland into the lead.

It was central defender Collins’ first senior goal for his country and capped a fine individual display on a night when he completed a gruelling schedule of playing every minute of June’s four Nations League fixtures.

O’Shea said: “It was unbelievable, but I’m not surprised that he scored it. As soon as he picked the ball up, I knew that he was only going forward. The finish was spectacular, so fair play to him.

“Nathan is a talent and a credit to himself and is only getting better. He’s got to keep this momentum going, ride the wave that he is on and God knows where it can take him.”

Collins lit up Lodz 31 minutes into a pulsating encounter, picking off Mykola Shaparenko’s pass out of defence before carving his way past Oleksandr Zinchenko, Serhiy Sydorchuk and Illia Zabarnyi and audaciously beating goalkeeper Dmytro Riznyk with the outside of his right foot.

His stunning finish was ultimately enough only to secure a 1-1 draw after Artem Dovbyk levelled two minutes into the second half, but even that was a positive three days after a morale-boosting 3-0 victory over Scotland in Dublin which dispelled the misery of back-to-back defeats by Armenia and Ukraine.

West Brom defender O’Shea, 23, said: “To start this window with two defeats was tough, but we had to bounce back and there is no better way