Corry Evans won cap number 62 but couldn’t stop Northern Ireland falling to a third successive Nations League defeat.

Ian Baraclough’s side were knocked back down to earth as they were beaten 1-0 by Austria at Windsor Park which was able to accommodate 600 supporters.

The Irish came into the game on the back of a penalty shoot-out win over Bosnia & Herzegovina four days earlier which moves them to within one match of reaching next summer’s rescheduled Euro 2020 finals.

Evans was one of five players rested after the midweek exertions, coming off the bench in the 77th minute as the hosts chased an equaliser.

But Baraclough felt his players were below-par in the first half, trailing at the break to Michael Gregoritsch’s 42nd minute effort, and believes they have to do better when it comes to preparing for matches in quick succession.

He said: “We want to go to finals tournaments when you can be playing games every four days.

“It’s a learning curve for us, those that haven’t been to the Euros. We want to be on that stage and we have to cope with it.

“We have a find a way because we have more triple-headers coming up next month, in March and again next September. It’s becoming the norm.”

Evans was making his fourth appearance of the season for Northern Ireland, but hasn’t featured for Rovers since their opening day defeat at Bournemouth because of a bruised foot.

Tony Mowbray will hope to have the 30-year-old available for this weekend’s visit of Nottingham Forest, but Northern Ireland have one more game before then, Wednesday’s trip to Norway.

Meanwhile, Louie Annesley will return to Rovers after playing his part in Gibraltar’s second successive Nations League win.

The 22-year-old played 90 minutes as Gibraltar won 1-0 in Liechtenstein to back-up last month’s success over San Marino. Annesley won his 11th cap and in the process helped his country to a second successive win, and clean sheet, in the Group N clash.

The Rovers youngster played 45 minutes of last week’s friendly defeat to Malta, but will return to East Lancashire to prepare for the Under-23s’ weekend trip to Southampton.

Annesley started the wins over Manchester City and Leicester City but was absent for the 2-2 draw with Manchester United because of his international commitments.