Norwich City's Euro 2016 contingent came through safely – just – from their final exertions before the tournament gets down to business.

Northern Irishman Kyle Lafferty was the only one of the four Canaries who gave his manager a fright – the 28-year-old was substituted early in the second half of a 0-0 warm-up draw with Slovakia.

However, Northern Ireland boss Michael O'Neill insists Lafferty – as well as team-mate Craig Cathcart – came off simply as a precaution.

Lafferty is a talismanic figure in the Northern Ireland camp – he scored seven goals in the qualifying campaign – and was involved in a running battle with Martin Skrtel during the game.

Slovakia had clearly identified the Norwich striker as the main threat, and rightly so after his performances in qualifying. It couldn't prevent Lafferty from having two efforts on goal in the first half, but the first was blocked by Peter Pekarik, with referee Marian Radu Peterscu rejecting Northern Ireland's appeals for handball, and the second flew well over.

'Kyle just had a little bit of a tight calf from a kick,' said O'Neill.

'We had planned to take off Kyle on 60-65 minutes. He wanted to stay on but there was no sense in it, and the same with Craig. If it was the Poland game in that situation and we needed them, they wouldn't have come off.

'They're both fine. It was precautionary.'

Republic of Ireland pair Wes Hoolahan and Robbie Brady will depart for France with the rest of Martin O'Neill's squad on Wednesday, while Canaries defender Martin Olsson came through yesterday's 3-0 friendly win over Wales with no reported ill-effects.

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