WELSH assistant boss Osian Roberts believes Chris Coleman’s charges did all they could to ensure qualification to the European Championships against Israel, describing their display as one of the best of the campaign, writes Michael Pearlman.

Wales are on the brink of France with just a maximum of one point required in their final two contests of Group B against Bosnia and Andorra.

But Roberts was thrilled with what he felt was a positive week.

“We would have loved to win the game; that goes without saying, but in terms of the performance, we were really pleased with many aspects of it,” he said.

“Israel played with a different shape, to frustrate us and then changed their system again at half time. That is a sign of respect and the kind of respect teams are showing us now because of what this group of players has earned. Israel didn’t want to go toe-to-toe with us, other teams fear us.

“At times our play was excellent. Our possession and chances created were well above average for this campaign but it wasn’t to be for us. But in terms of every aspect of what we look for, other than finding the net – the most important and most difficult one – everything in our performance was as we would want compared to previous performances in the campaign.

“Decisions can go for or against you, unfortunately the penalty didn’t go for us, Hal Robson-Kanu was certain it was a handball, but on a different night we might have scored two or three goals and been comfortable.

“The performance was better than Cyprus on Thursday in many aspects, we feel we have progressed and we have confidence we can get over that line.”

Roberts was pleased for the chance for Wales to test themselves against an ultra-defensive team.

“It presents a new challenge for us, dealing with a style like Israel deployed,” he said.

“We’ve shown we can compete well with the top teams, showing good organisation and looking to catch teams on the break and be a strong counter-attacking team, that’s been seen, but now other teams are wary of being too open against us. That’s a completely new challenge.

“But despite Israel doing that, we still created chances, we had 17 efforts on target, which isn’t bad, we just couldn’t get that first goal. If it had come early, it would have been a different story; we’ve seen that so many times at international level.”

Roberts hailed the whole team for Wales’ marvellous defensive record.

“Our defence is individuals who are proud and enjoy keeping clean sheets and as a unit and collectively, they are a team. And defending with this team starts in attack. There is a desire among them to make sure we don’t give away anything cheaply,” he explained.

“Both Israel and Cyprus only had one shot on goal and that says a lot. We also restricted Israel by having a lot of the ball. The clean sheet is important, but we felt our possession was better than it has been in other games.”

Roberts insists the spirit in the camp will ensure Wales get over the line.

“The group is exceptionally close. Someone like David Edwards, he’s had a chronic back injury, but always reported to camp and didn’t want to miss out, even when he couldn’t play for what was a very long time,” he said.

“To see him now getting his rewards, it’s great. They are a very close-knit group without egos, we’ve got good leadership in Chris Coleman and the players have brought into that. This is the tightest group of players I’ve known.

“We’ve got a bit of work to do before France, but the spirit is second to none and long may that continue.

“As long as they all continue to give their all, who is to say what could happen if we did get there.

“We’ll have to wait and see, we aren’t there yet and we are already talking about the next two games, the planning begins now.”