The Irish delegation returned home from Frankfurt last night happy with the day's work at the German FA that yielded an away trip to the three-time world champions in September to kick off the Republic's next European Championship qualification campaign (venue to be decided), and home games against Cyprus and Wales 14 months later in Croke Park to wrap it up.

In between, Steve Staunton's side face a hectic schedule, the highlights of which will be the visit of the Czech Republic to Dublin this October, a difficult looking "double header" in, almost certainly, Bratislava and Prague during September 2007, and the visit by Germany some four weeks later to Croke Park where, assuming the Irish retain any interest in the hunt for one of the group's two qualification slots, a sell-out crowd of around 70,000 will be guaranteed.

To allow themselves some flexibility in their dealings with the group's higher-ranked countries, the Irish struck an agreement with their counterparts from San Marino that will see the countries meeting at the end of this year and the start of next on dates designated by Fifa for friendly games.

The arrangement meant the delegation, comprising Staunton, Bobby Robson, FAI chief executive John Delaney, president David Blood and the association's director of strategic affairs, Declan Conroy, could juggle the competitive dates a little more freely than their counterparts.

And it was claimed the approach had worked well, with the list of fixtures conforming closely to the wish list drawn up.

"Obviously I'm pleased," said Staunton, "because we got quite a lot of what we were looking for. That's not to say it's not going to be tough, but it's an exciting group and there are cracking games in there. At least now we're in a position to start getting on with the preparations."

Aside from keeping the games with Germany at extremes of the campaign schedule, the new manager said his priorities had been to avoid having to play in June (due to the potential for fatigue and/or heat to affect players) and to ensure the games away to Slovakia and the Czech Republic were in one trip.

This latter approach would seem to be a gamble, as the game against Slovakia on September 8th of next year should be highly competitive, a little too much so perhaps to provide the ideal build-up to a game against the side currently ranked number two in the world, on their own turf, four days later. Despite the fear that injuries, suspensions or mere tiredness might affect his side's prospects in Prague, however, Staunton was adamant it is the right approach to take.

"Of course it's going to be tough, but the fact is you have to play them at some stage, and staying over that side of Europe for a few days in order to take in both games will make things that bit more straightforward," he said.

"The other positives came from utilising the friendly dates to play San Marino," he said. "It means that we can have a free date after the game against Germany which will give us the chance to sweeten the players' club managers before taking the lads away for the friendly dates."

The intention then is to release the players back to their clubs immediately after the opening game of the campaign, which, Staunton confirmed, rules out the use of the second available date in September this year to play a friendly match.

There will still not be, however, any guarantee that the clubs will make their players available for international duty again for the San Marino dates any more than the 48 hours that is mandatory for friendly games. Staunton clearly hopes they will play ball, so to speak, but it is presumably not a gamble he was anxious to take in the context of games against any of Ireland's other group rivals.

By Christmas the Irish will have played four games - the last team to visit Lansdowne Road prior to the stadium's closure will be San Marino - and by March Ireland's prospects of defying their ranking and qualifying for a place in the 2008 European finals will be clearer as half the campaign will have been completed.

"We'll have played six games by then, which is more than most of them, I think," said Staunton, "and it'll give us a chance to assess where we stand. We'll be doing our damnedest to qualify, but it will be against a backdrop of the four-year plan I have talked about before. It all seems a little more real now and I'm looking forward to it."

Delaney also expressed satisfaction with the fixtures list. "Stephen and his backroom team gave us a very strong base on which to negotiate and I am delighted with the outcome of those negotiations," he said. "The agreed fixtures list will also allow us to play four matches in Croke Park in 2007."