SOCCER: With all of the required talking done, Mick McCarthy finally confirmed yesterday he had not only agreed the terms of his new two-year contract with the FAI but he had also finally signed on the dotted line, writes Emmet Malone

Despite looking as happy about the fact as his employers, when the news was announced at his first press conference of the week, though, he preferred to view it as just one more item on the long list of things to be checked off between now and Ireland's first outing of the World Cup finals in Niigata on June 1st.

Getting the deal sorted out, he said at the Irish team's Dublin hotel, was important in that it let him get on with the more important business of preparing for the World Cup. And, the time frame, which brings him up to the European finals in Portugal, was as far as he was prepared to go.

"If we go into the European Championships next time and don't qualify," he said, "then I won't be here because the standards have been set. If we don't qualify then I won't be here. Likewise, if we hadn't qualified this time, I wouldn't be here right now."

After McCarthy left, there was some discussion among the hacks as to whether this, in newspaper terms, constituted a resignation threat. The numbers in the "yes" camp suggested that if McCarthy's line about rarely bothering to read the papers isn't true, then the fourth-contract honeymoon period in his occasionally difficult dealings with the media could well be over by lunchtime today.

McCarthy, though, starts his new term better equipped to deal with the challenges facing him than at any point during his still rather short career in management. He again emphasised yesterday how much he feels he has developed as a manager during his time in the job. Now, it seems, only the rapidly-growing expectations which the team's recent success has generated could present him with problems.

At any previous point during his six-year tenure the absence of two Tottenham first-team regulars would have appeared to seriously dent his options. These days he periodically takes time out, as he did yesterday, to make clear how much he could do with having players like Steve Carr and Gary Doherty available to him again. Even in their absence, though, there is cut-throat competition for places.

He is helped this week by the fact that every one of the 24 players selected for tomorrow's friendly against Russia has arrived safely for the game. "Yeah," he chuckled at the thought of it yesterday, "it's funny what a miraculous cure the World Cup seems to be."

The Russians, he says, will provide tough opposition, but as far as he is concerned they are far from being his main concern this week. He hopes to get agreement to the use of at least seven substitutes over the course of this match and, assuming he does, he must then figure out how to best use this opportunity to weigh up his selection options.

"What I don't want to do is to put my strongest side out there and then to gradually weaken it over the course of the match, until we end up with a weaker and less experienced side against a good Russian team. I may throw in a couple of the younger lads at the start and see how it all goes, although, to be honest, there probably isn't a huge amount that I can learn at this stage about our own lads.

"Results aren't everything, but Lansdowne Road is important to us and I don't want to lose there. Still, I'll have a look at a couple of the lads, the ones who haven't played in training over the next couple of days before making a decision on what I'm going to do."

Most of the 23 places on the plane to Japan, he admits, are accounted for. "You know who they are yourselves, the lads who contributed most through the qualifiers, the ones who played in most of the games - they're not going to get left behind now. But," he adds, "there are bound to be injuries and a couple of places for the less experienced lads to play for."

In addition to sizing up the strength of his own panel, he is also keeping a careful watch on Ireland's group rivals, a process that began in earnest last week when his assistant, Ian Evans, travelled to Mali in order to see Cameroon, and despite their success, came back with an upbeat assessment.

The African team's success in the Cup of Nations would probably, McCarthy said, make things more difficult for the Irish as their rivals would arrive in Japan confident and improved by their long spell together. "I'd still like to see them against European opposition. They play England before the World Cup starts, though, and I'll get a chance to see at first hand what they look like then."