Given may make qualifiers

SOCCER:Newcastle United expect Shay Given to recover from the recurrence of a groin strain suffered over the weekend within a couple of weeks which would mean the 31-year-old will be fit for the Republic of Ireland's trip to Bratislava and Prague for vital European Championship qualifiers at the start of next month.

The goalkeeper, however, looks certain to miss the friendly international against Denmark in Aarhus in two weeks time and Steve Staunton will be seriously concerned about an injury which wreaked such havoc with the goalkeeper's availability last year and may yet cause him to miss vital international games.

However, Sam Allardyce believes that for the moment at least there is little cause for concern. "He's been for a scan and it doesn't look serious," said the one-time Limerick boss yesterday. "At the moment we only expect him to be out for a couple of weeks but we won't take any risks."

Damien Duff's return, meanwhile, remains a more distant prospect with the club currently putting his remaining recovery time at "at least six to eight weeks", a time frame that makes him very doubtful for the games against Germany and Cyprus in October.

However, the Dubliner said yesterday: "I'm working my socks off to get back playing as soon as I can. Everything has gone okay so far and hopefully it will continue that way." Duff said the arrival of Allardyce, whose approach to injury prevention and treatment during his time at Bolton was widely praised, had been a boost and not only to him during his recovery. "The club needed a fresh start," said the former Chelsea winger. "Sam did a great job at Bolton and he's come here and sorted everything out, from top to bottom he's changed things."

Sunderland have finally agreed a fee with Cork City for 21-year-old striker Roy O'Donovan who is set to do a medical at the Stadium of Light today. The two clubs have apparently settled on an initial fee of around €500,000 for the under-21 international with the premiership outfit potentially paying the same again in performance related bonuses.

"I feel it's the right club for me," said O'Donovan after the deal was done yesterday.

"It was a great situation to be in with two Premier Division clubs looking to sign me but I was really impressed with Roy Keane. He put me under no pressure; all he did was talk about football but afterwards my gut feeling was that this was the right club for me."

It remains slightly unclear when O'Donovan will actually leave for the north east of England with the player himself unsure yesterday whether he would still be around to feature in tomorrow night's Cork City game at Bohemians but clearly his time at the club is on the verge of coming to an end.

"I'm hugely grateful to everybody at City for what they have done for me," he said.

"Three years ago I came home after being released by Coventry City and the club was very good to me. I like to think that I repaid at least some of the debt with the effort I put into playing while I was here.

"I'm very excited now about what is a huge new challenge for me and I'm aware that this isn't the time for pats on the back. I haven't done anything yet but I'm going to do everything possible to make sure I make a success of my time at Sunderland."

The €500,000 to be paid up front is the largest initial fee ever paid by an English club to a League of Ireland player although Dundalk earned more than €1 million from the sale of Staunton to Liverpool after they had collected a succession of bonuses and a percentage of the fee when he left Anfield.

Another former under-21 international on the move is Paul Tierney who yesterday signed for Stockport County from Blackpool in a six-month loan deal. Blackpool, meanwhile, are still awaiting a decision from Fifa on their dispute with Livingston over the signing of former Shelbourne winger Wes Hoolahan.