Little learnt for match that shouldn't be

It wasn't so much low octane as certifiably octane free, but for all the criticisms of his players' performances in Saturday's friendly I'm sure Mick McCarthy will be glad that they got some sort of game under their belts.

True, it was a terrible game. And there was hardly anything approaching the outstanding performance by a fringe player that might have cheered the Ireland manager ahead of the coming week's scheduled Euro qualifiers. But in the current circumstances, anything more stimulating for the players than another afternoon on the training pitch will have been a welcome break for McCarthy.

The game itself will not have meant too much to anybody in the Irish camp. It was the sort of encounter that leaves players wondering "What exactly I'm doing here?". But on Saturday there was a worthwhile answer to that in terms of the money that was being raised for a good cause.

The result will not have mattered much either, for the goal was a fluke and overall the Republic created the better of what few chances there were. Still, there were disappointments for McCarthy as he prepares for games that may - or may not - take place over the next 10 days.

It would, for a start, have been nice to stick a few goals past a side whose recent record is not littered with clean sheets. Niall Quinn did quite well, and Robbie Keane had his moments, but neither man had much to work with by way of decent possession and Keane wasn't quite sharp enough to take the couple of chances that came his way. Between them, though, the pair did enough to confirm that they are McCarthy's best attacking combination for Saturday's game.

Behind them, Lee Carsley and Mark Kinsella looked solid enough, too, and will almost certainly retain their starting places.

On the wings, however, we lacked the sort of penetration that might have been expected against such a weak defence. Damien Duff, probably the one wide player we possess at this level who has that little bit of extra quality required to cause good players problems, had a quiet enough afternoon. McCarthy will just have to hope that he shows us a little more of what he is capable of next time out.

Mark Kennedy, on the other hand, did quite well. He cut inside with considerable effectiveness and produced most of what passed for decent crosses during the match. The problem is that he looked like he was playing well for him, and there's really little to suggest that he could seriously trouble full-backs of genuinely international class.

McCarthy, as we know only too well, loves the player and it is certainly not that hard to see what the attraction was a few years back. Unfortunately for Kennedy, however, he simply has not had the opportunity to develop his game by playing regularly at a high level, and so he has not come too far since emerging as such an exciting prospect at Millwall.

The option for the Ireland boss is Jason McAteer, who will probably come back in at the weekend if he is fit again. But then the Blackburn player's form this season would scarcely keep too many visiting managers up the night before a game.

In defence, McCarthy will have, and be glad to have, Denis Irwin back: how he must wish both of Manchester United's Corkmen were arriving today. Alan Maybury's display on Saturday was respectable, but, whatever McCarthy might have thought in the past, there is little disputing the United full back's position in the pecking order at the moment.

Steve Carr, meanwhile, did well in his second international and McCarthy will not worry too much about the prospect of throwing him into competitive action for the first time. The Dubliner has come a long way over the past season and now looks well capable of coping.

Not so, unfortunately, Phil Babb, who failed once again to convince that he should displace Gary Breen at the heart of the back four. Breen, like the Liverpool player, has a tendency to make errors, but he does not seem to get himself into trouble or make such poor judgment calls as Babb, and that is largely why McCarthy will look to pair him with Kenny Cunningham this weekend.

That, of course, is always assuming that the game goes ahead, and I still can't believe that it will. Neither, it seems, can the players, and while it will be McCarthy's task to get everybody in his squad focused from today and ensure that they prepare on the basis that they will have to take the field on Saturday afternoon, I don't envy him his task.

If the match does go ahead I don't think that anything that he saw on Saturday will worry him too much. Most of the players who would really expect to be in the starting line-up against Yugoslavia did well enough against Northern Ireland, and everybody will step it up a few gears for what is a hugely important competitive match.

The fact remains, however, that it is a match that simply shouldn't take place and which most of the players will be reluctant to see proceed. It's difficult to see what more the FAI can do to persuade UEFA that it shouldn't, but it's even more difficult to imagine that if Wembley was the venue and England the team expected to play in these circumstances that the European body wouldn't be forced to back down.

Had UEFA been decisive enough to act when they should have, then the qualifying stages of their most important competition might not have become a bit of a farce. At this stage Ireland's group is already that, and all that can be salvaged from the current situation is a little bit of the organisers' collective dignity.

Right now, it seems, nobody who matters cares about that.