SOCCER/World Cup warm-up: With his squad's charitable obligations safely out of the way, and Roy Keane having safely arrived at the team hotel, Mick McCarthy was preparing to move on to the closing stages of his preparations for the World Cup finals in Dublin yesterday.

Having chopped and changed his line-ups extensively during the course of the recent programme of friendlies, the Ireland manager said yesterday that he would look to start with something approaching his strongest side this evening at Lansdowne Road where the Irish take on England's Group F rivals Nigeria for the first time.

With Keane and Steven Reid, called in yesterday for the injured Mark Kennedy, both arriving at the team hotel late in the afternoon, McCarthy had a full panel to choose from by last night and his hope will be that Ireland can avoid a repeat of the 3-1 defeat by the Czech Republic that marked the squad's departure for the United States in 1994 while also maintaining a two-year unbeaten run at home.

In the circumstances it is likely that in addition to Shay Given, who the manager confirmed would start, Keane as well as the likes of Ian Harte, Damien Duff and Jason McAteer will be included in the starting line-up tonight.

In central defence, McCarthy's choice of two from Steve Staunton, Kenny Cunningham and Gary Breen will provide the strongest indication yet of his intentions for the first group game against Cameroon in two weeks time.

Breen officially parted company with Coventry City earlier this week when the club announced that it was releasing him after he turned down what was claimed to be the most lucrative contract in the club's history.

Asked yesterday about his future he said that things were at "a delicate stage" but that he would not be looking to resolve things now until after the finals.

McCarthy, meanwhile, insisted that Keane's arrival had "never been in doubt" but added that he had yet to talk to the player who had arrived less than an hour previously.

"I'm leaning towards naming as strong a line-up as I can," he said, implying that if the Manchester United is fully fit, as has been repeatedly stated over the past couple of days, then the 30-year-old will earn his 58th international cap.

Asked about the timing of the game, which takes place on the eve of the squad's departure for their initial base on the island of Saipan, McCarthy insisted that he was still happy that he had agreed to play it.

"I think it's a good game because I took it," he said. "It can be useful because we play Cameroon, although that's not to say that it necessarily counts for anything.

"I mean you can't say that we're like England just because we're all northern Europeans."

While McCarthy settled down to watch last night's Champions League final with all of his players, his Nigerian counterpart, Adegboye Onigbinde, was still waiting to see whether four members of his still 35 strong panel would make it to Dublin at some point today.

Chelsea's Celestine Babayaro and Victor Agali of Schalke 04 were amongst the Nigerian players who were obliged to stay in London yesterday in order to sort out their visas for the trip to Japan.

An official of the association said that the problem was a minor one and that the players concerned should be in a position to travel this afternoon, but it apparently followed an earlier difficulty involving the visas of a number of other squad members which was only sorted out when they arrived at Dublin airport.

Behind the scenes Onigbinde had other concerns, too, with his attempt to resolve his differences with former team captain Sunday Oliseh being knocked back by senior officials within the association.

The manager spoke to the player last week and said afterwards that he had accepted an apology for his role in the dispute over money at the African Cup of Nations earlier this year in Mali.

Onigbinde's employers, however, seem less willing to forgive and forget Oliseh's reported demand that money paid out by players to get to the tournament be refunded and the Borussia Dortmund player may again be omitted when the squad is narrowed down to 23, most likely after Saturday's final warm-up match against Jamaica at Loftus Road.

Ttonight's game is being seen as a vital preparation exercise for both sides, especially with McCarthy intent on starting with his favoured team for the finals.