DENIS IRWIN is out of the Republic of Ireland squad for next Tuesday's World Cup warm-up game against Wales at Cardiff.
Just hours after Watford's David Connolly had admitted defeat in his attempt to prove his recovery from a torn hamstring, Mick McCarthy learned that he would also have to replace Irwin.
Predictably, he turned to Ian Harte of Leeds United to fill the defensive vacancy with the uncapped Wimbledon player Jon, Goodman being added to the depleted front line options.
Preparations for friendly games at this time of year are frequently disrupted by injuries and withdrawals, a point McCarthy acknowledged earlier in the week when he spoke of the likelihood of having to replace some established members of his squad.
So he probably expected the worst as he watched Irwin make a premature departure from Manchester United's FA Cup replay. defeat by Wimbledon at Selhurst Park on Tuesday evening.
At the time, Irwin's replacement by Brian McClair was construed as nothing more than a tactical ploy by Alex Ferguson in a last desperate attempt to retrieve the game. But a statement from Old Trafford yesterday said that Irwin had sustained a groin injury and would not be available to join the Irish squad in Cardiff.
It meant an unexpected reprieve for Harte, just a week after McCarthy had left him out of the original squad. Coincidentally, the young Drogheda man, currently excluded from Leeds' first team, won his seventh cap as a replacement for Irwin in the game against Iceland at Lansdowne Road in November.
Connolly's hopes of ending a frustrating absence from the national team ended when he was ruled out of Watford's FA Cup replay with Manchester City at Maine Road last evening. Although Watford have a league game with Brentford at the weekend, it was conceded that if Connolly could not play last evening he would not be ready for and international match just six days.. later.
It extends a thoroughly frustrating spell for the player who, after enjoying a spectacular introduction to international competition at the end of last season, subsequently missed all three World Cup qualifying games because of injury.
The other side of the coin is that it gives Goodman the chance of getting into the team, ahead of the World Cup games in Macedonia and Romania in April.
Goodman, the latest English-born player to pursue an international career with Ireland under FIFA's ancestry rule, has only recently returned from injury. He was named in the preliminary squad for the opening World Cup game in Liechtenstein in August but was then withdrawn after meeting with problems in the attempt to establish his Irish credentials.
Since then, however, the necessary documentation has been put in place and following the withdrawal of two of McCarthy's strikers - Keith O'Neill and Connolly - he could get a run at some stage of the game in Cardiff.
