Soccer: A year ago winning friendly games was seen by Brian Kerr as a way of maintaining confidence and continuity at a time when he still hoped to breathe new life into Ireland's troubled Euro 2004 qualification campaign. Emmet Malone Soccer correspondent reports

Twelve months on and the Ireland manager signalled yesterday that while the available players may have remained largely unchanged, for the year ahead his priorities have shifted rather significantly.

With a strong squad to choose from ahead of tomorrow evening's game against the world champions, Kerr suggested yesterday the Brazil match would mark the start of a new phase in his management of the Irish team. Over the next nine months, he said, he would use the games available to him to reassess the range of talent available to him.

There are, of course, a few players entitled to expect to start against the Cypriots come September but, said the manager, "It's all up for grabs around the pitch."

Kerr said he was starting the process from a position of relative strength with the fortunes of several players having improved at club level over the past few months. The hope is that increased competition within the squad will help the team rediscover the winning formula that deserted them at key moments in the last campaign. This year, though, Kerr won't worry quite so much about winning until the autumn.

"We may have to take some hits in order to allow some players to impress between now and September," he said. "We may lose some of the games we have coming up, it's almost inevitable we will, but from my point of view those results won't be critical, it's what happens in September and October that will matter most.

"It's eight months before the qualifying games come about and all of the lads will have the chance to force their way into the team during that time. We won't forget what fellas have done for us in the past but if players come in and do well then they'll be right in contention for September."

Given the quality of the opposition tomorrow, he added, this game may be less of an opportunity for experimentation than some of those due to come over the spring and summer.

With that in mind Kerr suggested Shay Given would start and possibly finish the match despite the presence of two uncapped goalkeepers on the bench.

The manager insisted he would have no concerns about throwing Paddy Kenny into action if required but for Graham Stack, the Arsenal goalkeeper with just five League Cup games as well as some first-team action while on loan in Belgium, the next few days are likely to amount to a taster of what the 22-year-old should aspire to achieving on a more regular basis somewhere down the line.

Stack was called into the squad yesterday after West Brom's Joe Murphy was forced to withdraw with a back problem.

Kevin Kilbane, meanwhile, limped out of yesterday's training session after going over awkwardly on his ankle but the 27-year-old insisted afterwards he expected to be fit to play if Kerr names him in tomorrow evening's starting line-up.

With Andy Reid's arrival Kilbane faces competition from a new quarter for his place in the Irish side but has rarely been in better shape to fight his corner. Since moving to Everton, where he has been reunited with his old friend and mentor David Moyes, the midfielder has recaptured his very best form and, in recent weeks, even discovered a knack for scoring goals with three in his last nine appearances.

His role of late has changed somewhat with Moyes preferring, on a number of occasions, to play him on the left of a three-man midfield and Kilbane, spurred on by a desire to prove his worth once more, has thrived even if he feels the team might benefit from another rethink.

"I've enjoyed it all right," he says, "but we've conceded a lot of goals and it might be that we need to get our shape again and get behind the ball.

"Personally, it's been a good season for me but as a team we know we haven't been good enough. There's a good bunch of players there but we've been having a difficult time. I still think, though, we know what we have to do to get out of trouble between now and the end off the season."

Whatever the club's difficulties, Kilbane has been playing perhaps the best football of his career, something he puts down, in more ways than one, to being reunited with the man who first helped his development as a young player at Preston.

"He (Moyes) knows a lot about me and it always helps when the manager understands you," he says. "But I think the fact we go back a bit has also meant I've wanted to prove myself to other players who might just think that he bought me because he knew me from before."

Kerr, of course, goes back that little bit further with the squad's other left-sided midfielders but in his current form Kilbane has firmly restated his claim to a place that, for all his earlier effort, had seemed to be slipping from his grasp.