European Youth Championship Qualifiers: Rising Irish Celtic star Cillian Sheridan is likely to have to settle for a place on the bench this evening in Drogheda where at seven o'clock the Republic kick off the second phase of their campaign to reach this European Youth Championship finals with a game against Bulgaria.

The 18-year-old made his senior debut for the Scottish outfit back in February which would normally make him something of a sure thing to start at this level. On this occasion, though, manager SeáMcCaffrey has perhaps Ireland's best array of striking talent in a decade to choose from, with Adam Rooney and Anthony Stokes currently reckoned to be first among a handful of equals.

"To be fair," says McCaffrey, "Rooney's been there the whole time and has scored 16 goals in 18 games so he's got to start and there's not much point in bringing Anthony in and then not playing him. The only way to accommodate Cillian would be to play three up front but we'll not do that because, while they're all gifted lads, there's the risk of becoming top heavy and exposing the team at the back."

Similarly, McCaffrey dismisses the suggestion that Stokes might start out wide as he has done for Sunderland on a number of occasions. "No, he's only a striker for me," he says. "He has a great talent but he takes chances and risks which is part of his game. If he does that in their area and it doesn't come off then that's fine but he does it out on the right we could end up getting nailed."

McCaffrey concedes the Dubliner's lack of real pace probably cost him a future at Arsenal while missing the bus at Sunderland put a temporary dampener on his relationship with Roy Keane. Both, he believes however, are setbacks the 18-year-old can put down to experience as he moves forward.

"At Arsenal it would have been like a bus queue," he says. "Wenger would have been looking for great technical ability and pace in the club's young players and while Anthony's got the technical ability, he's got no pace . . . well, he's quickish but his strengths certainly lie elsewhere.

"He's a great young fella to deal with, though. He's learning the game and probably the most important lesson he's learned this year is you can be a hero one day and on the floor the next. Being four minutes late for a bus means nothing to a young lad but if a manager feels it's habit forming then it can be a problem so that too, was part of the learning process."

Stokes agrees. On balance, he says, a season in which he scored 18 goals for Falkirk and, after a £2 million transfer, Sunderland has to be considered a success but, he admits, "there were a couple of things that I would have done differently".

Things weren't helped, he argues, by the amount of upheaval involved in moving first to Scotland, then briefly back to London and on to Sunderland where he spend his first couple of months in a seafront hotel. "It's not an excuse for anything, I should be able to bring my form with me but it's certainly been easier since I got my own place and my family have been able to come up and stay."

Keane, he says, has been "very good" about the much publicised disciplinary problems that arose, saying they were "in the past" and confirmation he had rehabilitated in his manager's eyes came with his return to the Sunderland starting line-up for the last two games of the campaign.

First up, though, is this week's qualifying tournament and then a trip to the United States with the senior squad which McCaffrey says the striker will make regardless of whether he stays on for the final under-19 games against Hungary.

The manager feels his side's prospects of progressing to July's final in Austria hinge on beating Germany on Wednesday plus one other team and Stokes reacts with genuine surprise when it is suggested he might have preferred to concentrate on impressing Steve Staunton abroad. "I want to play as many games as I can for my country and I've played one for the senior team," he laughs, "so it's not as if I am a regular at that level or anything. If we don't qualify from this then it will be my last chance to play for the under-19s and that's important."

If he and his underage team-mates perform over the coming days, there will be a last hurrah in mid-summer and, of course, the need to tell Keane he'll be late back for pre-season. Perhaps, he really should have headed straight to New York after all.

IRELAND(probable): Henderson (Aston Villa); Davies (Reading), Spillane (Norwich City), Lowry (Aston Villa), Nolan (Blackburn Rovers); Judge (Blackburn Rovers), Ryan (Liverpool), Power (Nottingham Forest), Bayly (Leeds United); Stokes (Sunderland), Rooney (Stoke City).

Republic of Ireland v Bulgaria, Drogheda, 7.0