Mick McCarthy’s Ireland squad trained in Dublin today and the manager afterwards admitted that, barring injuries to key players between now and Saturday, he knows the eleven men to whom he will entrust the task of beating Portugal at Lansdowne Road.
Kenny Cunningham would most probably be one of those eleven but trouble with his stomach muscle means the Wimbledon captain is "a serious concern". Cunningham’s role in training today was restricted to straight running, and the player himself clearly has doubts over his ability to recover in time from an injury that has dogged him since even before Wimbledon’s 1-1 draw at Fulham last month, his last club appearance of the season."I had been making a big effort till then, but not winning ruled us out of the play-offs so the remaining matches weren’t very significant so I took the time off to try to deal with problem".
Today’s training session was his first since then and he was taking it very easy "Mick will know by Friday whether I can play or not.Realistically, I’ ll have to go at it full blast for a couple of days before then if I’m to take part.Saturday’s match is so important, and Portugal are such difficult opponents, that I wouldn’t dare play if I was less than 100% fit".
He modestly added "not that that will make any difference to the national side given the quality of player we have in that position".
"Besides, I haven’t played any great role in this campaign.It was our points in Portugal and Holland that has given us the platform to hopefully win the group, and I wasn’t involved in those games.Instead, Richard Dunne and Gary Breen were outstanding."
Robbie Keane also trained today for the first time since getting injured in a crunching tackle by Tony Adams when playing for Leeds against Arsenal. Though he didn’t even attempt tackling or shooting with his right foot he, along with club-mate Gary Kelly, is expected to be fit well in advance of the weekend.
Thirty-four year old Niall Quinn also took part in training, though his team-mates were under special instructions not to challenge with excessive force."That’s very often the norm for players of his age", explained McCarthy, "You wrap them up in cotton wool and allow them do what they know their body is capable of."
The Quinn option is critical to the Irish cause and "has been ever since I’ ve been Irish manager, and him and Robbie Keane do have a good partnership together".
"Having said that, in Portugal we didn’t get any great joy out of him, their centre-backs were excellent.But at home we’d expect to get more crosses in".A powerful aerial presence remains a valuable weapon - "Look at the Champions League Final" said McCarthy, "when Bayern brought on Carsten Jancker, who’s certainly not their best player for me, and he caused all sorts of problems, and won the penalty that got them back into the game."
Saturday’s match is, in the words of Kenny Cunningham, "pivotal"."We’re desperate to qualify for the World Cup - that’s where a player really finds out how good he is. We have to look at winning the group and to do that we’ ll certainly have to beat either Portugal or Holland".