Mick McCarthy's plans for the European championship games against Yugoslavia and Macedonia at Lans downe Road in June are in disarray following the cancellation of a trip to Brittany in May.

A three-day stay there, culminating in a game against a local selection on May 25th, was aborted by the Bretagne FA yesterday following a revision of the French domestic season.

The finish of the French First and Second Division championships has been deferred a week to May 29th because of a backlog of fixtures, rendering it impossible for Brittany to host the Irish squad on the original dates.

An alternative proposal by the Bretagne FA, who said that they wished to be associated with celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Ireland, that the visit be postponed until the first week in June was deemed impractical because of the proximity of the Yugoslav and Macedonian fixtures.

The game against Northern Ireland, in aid of the Omagh Fund, will still go ahead at Lansdowne Road on May 29th. But clearly, the loss of three days intensive training is significant in the context of the European games.

Competitive games in June are always fraught with some danger because of the time span between the finish of the English Premiership. The problem of keeping players fully fit and focused at the end of a long, demanding club season is widely acknowledged and it has been exacerbated on this occasion by the mix up over the availability of Lansdowne Road which resulted in the Macedonian fixture having to be brought forward from October 10th to June 9th.

The novel expedition to Brittany was designed to bridge the gap, and its cancellation presents McCarthy with an additional problem.

"When the proposal was first put to me, I thought, `Great, this is an ideal way of getting the squad together'," said McCarthy. "A gap of almost five weeks between our game against Sweden on April 28th and the Northern Ireland fixture is a bit long, but at this point there is nothing much we can do about it.

"Every member of the squad realises how important those two games against Yugoslavia and Macedonia are to our hopes of qualifying for the European finals and they'll need no coercion from anybody to keep themselves in shape."

Meanwhile, uncertainty over the match arrangements for the meeting with Macedonia at Skopje on March 27th continues following the latest dispatch from the Macedonian capital.

For some weeks the FAI has been endeavouring to ascertain the kick-off time. According to the Macedonian Federation, it will now happen between 5.0 and 7.0 p.m. Irish time. More than that, they are not yet prepared to say.

Likewise, no starting time has yet been decided for the European championship Under-21 game at Skopje on the eve of the senior fixture.