Away days cause Ireland concern

Mick McCarthy has one significant concern ahead of the talks in Skopje on Thursday and Friday to determine dates and venues for the fixtures in Group Eight of the European Championship qualifiers.

Each of the teams in the five-country group, comprised of Ireland, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Macedonia and Malta, is obliged to play two away games, back to back. For McCarthy, that is a dreadful scenario.

"You look at the composition of the group and it makes sense that we fulfil those two fixtures on a trip to the Balkans," he said. "But what worries me is that there may be pressure us to double up against Yugoslavia and Croatia and, potentially, that could be very expensive.

"Here you have two of the best teams in Europe, both qualified for the World Cup finals in France this summer, and there is no way that I want to take them on one after the other.

"A fixture with Macedonia followed by one against either Yugoslavia or Croatia is fine by me, but it may take a lot of persuasive talking and some bargaining to convince the other parties who will, of course, have their own agendas."

McCarthy, who is not going to Skopje for the meeting, will have one other instruction for the FAI officials sitting in on the talks. In line with the policy once favoured by Jack Charlton, he wishes to start his programme in Dublin in the hope of banking early points.

An acceptable alternative to that would be a trip to Malta where, barring the unthinkable, his team would be expected to open with a substantial win.

"These are our preferred choices, but of course the other people involved will also have their preferences," he said. "You seldom get all of what you want, but I think the priority is to avoid playing Yugoslavia and Croatia on the same trip."

With the cancellation of the proposed fixture against Jamaica, McCarthy's next assignment is to name a squad for the friendly against the Czech Republic at Oromouc on March 25th. And the question which intrigues above all others is whether Damien Duff and Robbie Keane will be in it.

These are the two most exciting prospects to surface on the Ireland scene for some time and the fact that their appearance in the team coincided with an overflow crowd for last Wednesday's B game against Northern Ireland was significant.

For all the other talent in the Republic's squad, it was Duff and Keane who fired the public imagination before and during a game which, in spite of the home team's dominance, ended in a 1-0 success for Northern Ireland.

As such, not everybody will have been impressed by McCarthy's general enthusiasm at the end of a game in which the Republic, for all their territorial advantage, only rarely threatened to make it pay.

On the performances of Duff and Keane, McCarthy said: "I think that both players felt the weight of expectation on them and started at such a pace that it looked as if they each wanted to score a hat-trick. For them, it was a very pressurised game, but I considered that they both did very well."

That is an assessment which would probably be shared by the majority of those who watched the game. It is, perhaps, a sign of the changing times - of the demise of one era and the start of another - that so much interest attaches to these young players.

It doesn't help that they have arrived on the scene at a time when even some of the senior members of the squad are low on self-esteem, but in a strange way they may both benefit from making their senior debuts away from home, where the pressure would be less intense.

To that extent, McCarthy will be looking in particular at Duff's claims for a place in the squad to travel to the Czech Republic. One suspects that Keane's chance will be delayed a little longer, but judged on his impressive rate of development at Blackburn, there is every reason to anticipate Duff's promotion.

To concentrate on Duff and Keane is, of course, to ignore the outstanding performer in the home team last Wednesday. Alan Maybury of Leeds United only got into the team after Philip Hardy had pulled out and, even then, he had to play out of position at left back.

Yet, his pace and general level of skill were such that his was by some way quite the most encouraging display we have seen in recent times from the younger school of Irish full backs. In terms of first team appearances at Elland Road, it has been a reasonably gratifying season to date for the young Dubliner.

By way of contrast, it has been a difficult campaign for another of Leeds' young Irishmen, Ian Harte. Prior to last Saturday's FA Cup win over Tranmere, in which, ironically, he replaced Maybury in the second half, Harte hadn't made a first-team appearance for Leeds since he came on as an 89th-minute substitute in the third round Cup win over Oxford in early January.

That is a worrying situation for Harte who, against all expectations, emerged as a key member of McCarthy's World Cup squad last year. His performances alongside Kenny Cunningham in central defence belied his lack of first-team football at club level, but obviously it is not a situation which can be sustained indefinitely - and both Harte and McCarthy know it.

The preferred option at this time would be for the player to go on loan in search of the first-team competition needed to revitalise his career but as yet, Leeds United, are not prepared to facilitate him. Neither, it seems, are they keen to sell him and, in that situation, the weeks and months ahead may prove difficult for the young Irishman.