Soccer Euro 2004 Qualifiers: Tom Humphries sets Brian Kerr's recent successes in context and ponders the questions of selection now facing the Ireland manager

On Wednesday night when the final whistle blew at Lansdowne Road, Brian Kerr leapt into the air and pumped his fist. It was the first time his feet have left the ground since he got the job he was born to do.

Under more difficult circumstances than any new Irish manager has ever faced, Kerr has assembled a more impressive opening record than any of his predecessors.

Most Irish managers have been given the comfort margin of a series of friendlies or a nice triangular tournament with which to persuade players that the best is about to be extracted from both ends of the broom.

Kerr had to open with the difficult trip to Scotland, wherein there was a minor earthquake brought on by news of Roy Keane's final departure from the international scene.

The squad Kerr met there had lost their senior influences and had been shellshocked by what had happened at the World Cup and subsequently. Many of them had known no other international manager than Mick McCarthy.

They felt aggrieved about the manner of McCarthy's departure, less than sanguine about Ireland's qualifying prospects.

That the team looks now as if it feels like it is in safe hands is a huge triumph of management.

There is an old story about Seán Boylan addressing the Meath senior team for the first time 21 years ago. The old lags of the Royal had seen managers come and go and this small, gentle man from Dunboyne looked as if he would be fodder for fun in the short term.

Boylan spoke though from the heart. No tactics. No big plans. No promises. Just about what the job meant and what Meath meant. He slew them with honest emotion, then impressed them with meticulous preparation. Brian Kerr has done the same.

Deservedly, Kerr has benefited from the fact that an increasingly influential cabal of young players led by Damien Duff and Robbie Keane adore him and in his service will run their legs until they are bloody stumps.

Jock Stein once said the key to management was keeping the six players who liked him away from the five who despised him. For Kerr the numbers are running far better.

It's true that Group 10 contains no world-beating side. True also that if Mick McCarthy had kept his head at the end of the Swiss game at home last year we would now be a point ahead instead of two behind. One less comedy goal donated to the Russians in Moscow and our goal difference would be healthier. It's all hindsight, conjecture or begrudgery though.

Kerr inherited a team dizzy from two bad losses, beaten up by a painful managerial resignation and still bruised by Saipan. There was poison in its system. It was a team which had excuses for itself sitting on the shelf waiting to be used.

Ten points out of a possible 12 represents more success than we had a right to expect. On Wednesday when he came to the press room Kerr was in the most relaxed state in which we have seen him in some time. Modesty aside, he knew what had been achieved.

The things which will keep him awake over the summer months when he dangles in his hammock are pleasant problems. Kerr knows that in Group 10 his side have the momentum and the energy.

There are two million permutations as to how the group might pan out (see panel) and yet very little to be afraid of. The Swiss don't look good enough to extract three points from a tricky excursion to Moscow. Ireland look to have enough going for them to beat the Russians at home and go to the Wankdorf Stadium in Berne next October with real confidence. Kerr will have noted that the Swiss have thus far failed to keep a clean sheet at home in the competition.

Kerr will reflect deeply on what permutations are open to him. He will fish out old memories of seeing players play out of their position and wonder could the same thing work again. In the end it will come back to the usual suspects. Kerr will pick conservatively and wisely.

Kevin Kilbane, for instance, is an easy target for criticism from those who can't figure why English Premiership and international managers have persisted with him. When it comes to attacking, his one decent trick appears to be knocking the ball down the outside, past the full back, and haring after it, but he plays, and defends especially, with an honest passion any manager would love. He's an awkward customer to get around and it is fascinating in matches sometimes to watch him and note how often he gets a foot in there, a head in here, to break down opposition moves.

As with Mick McCarthy, figuring out the best way to use Duff and Kilbane in a team together will be a key problem.

Just as pleasant a conundrum arises at the back. When Steve Finnan returns to the squad where does he stand? In fact does he sit? Steve Carr is not quite the player he was before injury interrupted his career, yet he works the position well, plays with passion and drive and has tenure.

John O'Shea in the other full-back slot has to be accommodated. He is the present and the future of this side. We will benefit from more than a decade's worth of his elegant play.

The obvious solution is a little daunting, however. Moving O'Shea into central defence, where he is destined to play and prosper, involves breaking up the partnership of Cunningham and Breen. More specifically, it probably involves consideration of dropping Gary Breen.

Funny to say, but that seems harsh and a little scary. The highlights reel of Breen's season at West Ham would be short and bitter, ending either with his psychological dismantling against Manchester United or his criticism of the club while in Scotland with Ireland in February.

The point is that on the big occasions with Ireland Gary Breen is a key part of what the team is. The point is that Cunningham and Breen is our most practised and established partnership, and the back four has been unchanged in competitive games under Kerr.

Breen is a smarter, more influential player than the blooper clips of his errors give him credit for. Kerr will have to weigh the value of that smartness, influence and experience against that tendency towards costly howlers. The massive importance of the games against the Swiss and the Russians is in Breen's favour. Breen is the obvious target for a dropping but this punter suggests that if everyone is fit, Finnan will lose out. Were this the mob, Breen would have the status of "made" guy.

Central midfield against the Albanians last Saturday was a disaster. Timid. Tired. Just horsed out of it. The sector never provided the drive that Irish teams need and which seemed necessary if the home crowd were to be lifted in the manner which the house management hoped for.

By the time we next do serious business it is likely Colin Healy will be playing in England, probably at Leeds. We'll be seeing Mark Kinsella less often than one imagines.

Healy will glance over his shoulder nervously at the pursuing posse. Seán Thornton at Sunderland needs a good under-20 World Cup at the end of the year to put the wax seal on his reputation. After that he will be chasing a senior international position.

Steven Reid is still a right-sided midfielder but again he has the drive, the energy and the inclination for central midfield play. A burst in the Premiership with his suitors from Blackburn will do him good.

One senses a mutual indifference between Mark Kennedy and Brian Kerr, something which may be driven by Kennedy's immense loyalty to Mick McCarthy and Wolves' protectiveness about the player.

Next season is a huge one in Kennedy's career, the last chance to prove that he can be the Premiership star he looked destined to be. If he has matured enough to pull that off, his claims on the right wing will be irresistible.

And in attack? Can Richie Sadlier rediscover the promise which brought him to the verge of a Premiership move at the beginning of last season. Since early in the Charlton era we have been a 4-4-2 team. Is it really that ingrained that we must playthat way? The evidence suggests it is - that every manager tinkers a little but resorts to the familiar in the end.

If so, do we persist with Gary Doherty through thick and thin? Duff has to be played. But where? Brian Kerr has almost three months. He'll get his players back fresh and willing at the start of a new season. The smart money says the team's momentum and Kerr's planning will carry them over the top.