If no news really is good news, then the word from the Irish camp at Citywest yesterday should be considered ample cause for celebration. Roy Keane jets in today, and a few players were forced to sit out yesterday's training game with the National League under-21s, but, those snippets aside, the word is everything is hunky dory ahead of Saturday's game with Iran.

Keane's fitness, of course, remains a question of key importance to Mick McCarthy and, in the wake of another telephone conversation with the player's manager at Old Trafford, the Ireland boss again insisted yesterday - despite reports to the contrary from England - that the 30-year-old is close to fully fit and certain to start this weekend.

Asked again about Alex Ferguson's reported comments that the player would be able for only one of the tie's two legs, McCarthy remarked: "He'll be available for Saturday's game, and if he plays in that then we'll look at him again before the next one, although if he doesn't get a bang then I can't see why there would be a problem.

"The problem is a niggle more than anything else," he added. "He's had his rest and Alex doesn't have a problem with it, he knows that Roy wants to come and play."

That the Corkman wants to play is beyond doubt, but there are persistent reports from England that his knee injury is far from cleared up and that he may yet be forced to sit out Saturday's encounter.

The United skipper's desire to be a part of both games is obviously shared by everybody else within the Irish camp. It also eases McCarthy's general concerns about the availability of players like Robbie Keane, Matt Holland, Steve Finnan and Kevin Kilbane, all of whom were forced to look on yesterday morning as the senior team beat a National League under-21 selection 6-2.

The younger Keane's difficulty is a groin strain, but he, says McCarthy, like everybody else, should be fine by tea-time on Saturday when the game at Lansdowne Road gets under way.

With no new worries on the injury front then, McCarthy was in buoyant mood as he talked about his squad's preparations for the coming games. The manager, who has repeatedly made it clear that he does not have any difficulty about travelling to the Middle East for the return, revealed he had a team meeting at which none of his players had voiced any concerns.

"One of them asked how long the flight was, I think it was Gary Kelly, and I said 45 minutes so he seemed fine with that," McCarthy beamed, before adding with a broadening grin that the military attacks on Afghanistan had prompted he and his wife, Fiona, to reconsider the wisdom of both of them travelling to the away leg.

"In the end we agreed that it mightn't be the best, so she's going and I'm staying at home."

The routine over, he went on to observe that "the only problem we've got with travelling to Tehran is beating the team we have to play out there".

McCarthy says he hopes to name his side tomorrow, although, in the event that everybody is fit, the only serious questions appear to be who plays in central defence, where any two from four might start, and at right back, where Steve Finnan may well retain his place despite Kelly's return from suspension.

Top of the pecking order in the centre, meanwhile, looks to be Steve Staunton, whose performances there since being drafted in as a late replacement for Gary Breen against Portugal in June have won glowing tributes from the manager.

One of the squad's veterans at this stage, Staunton says his sense that the current panel were on the verge of making a major breakthrough was one of the reasons he kept making himself available to McCarthy through times when it always seemed that the Ireland manager preferred to go with his other options.

"We've done well to finish second in the last two qualifying groups," he said, "and you have to remember that a few years ago that would have been enough to get us into both finals competitions. The pity is that we've been a bit unlucky when it's come to the play-offs.

"I like to think that we're a little bit wiser now, though, and I think that's shown in this campaign, particularly in the way that we've beaten the so-called minnows home and away when it's so easy sometimes to slip up and only get a point."

Having missed both the Holland match in Anfield and the Turkey games, Staunton's sole first-hand experience of Ireland's play-off misery was against Belgium, although even that, he admits, pales by comparison with the closing moment of the draw in Skopje last time around.

"Macedonia still sticks out, I think. To be first then third then second in the group all in the space of 90 seconds is something I'll not forget for a long time."

All of those disappointments, though, serve as added motivation ahead of the games against Iran.

"I think it means an awful lot to everybody," he remarks, "but I think the fact that it would still be a first major championships for Mick as a manager as well as for so many of the players makes it even more important. The fact that it would probably be the last one for Niall and myself sort of makes it special too, of course."