Toshack toasts 'unbelievable' Bellamy

Bellamy scored two great goals in the first half of this Euro 2008 qualifying match, a result which wipes away the bitter memory of a 5-1 defeat by the same opposition in Cardiff last year.

Toshack explained: "You normally have 22 players battling away out there, pretty evenly matched. This game saw 21 players, and one who was just unbelievable, it was a scintillating performance."

He added: "I cannot recall the last time I saw such an individual performance from a player that had so much influence on the outcome of the result.

"Craig gave us that result. His pace and willingness to run was stunning. The goals were very special and came after the team had gone behind early on. But that was an equally outstanding team performance. Overall I was very pleased with the outcome.

"Coming after a very disappointing display and defeat by Germany on Saturday, in which we had plenty of problems against a very good side, that was the perfect response.

"We do not often score five goals away from home, very few away teams in international football do. But we remember how we felt after losing to Slovakia 5-1 in Cardiff.

"We felt we played pretty well that day but the harder we tried, the worse it got. It was an accident, we felt."

But Toshack added: "We played the same system this time as we did in Cardiff against them, but this time the chances went in and in Craig we had the outstanding performance of the night.

"I suppose people will look at this result as a surprise, but then so was the 5-1 defeat we suffered at Slovakia's hands. But this was all about Bellamy and his attributes. He has blinding pace and he used it, although I did feel he got a little tired in the last two minutes when they had thrown in the towel."