McCarthy is confident that Harte won't miss his beat

Despite widespread reports yesterday that Leeds United defender Ian Harte would miss this Saturday's vital World Cup qualifier against the Netherlands in Lansdowne Road, Mick McCarthy last night insisted that the full back would be fit and available to play on the day.

The Ireland manager said that he had contacted the club on Saturday night regarding the Drogheda man's fitness after hearing that he had injured himself during Saturday's draw with West Ham, but that he had received assurances that the problem was not serious enough to keep him out of the Holland game.

Harte receive a bad gash to his ankle after a collision with West Ham's Paolo Di Canio and afterwards the defender received nine stitches to the wound.

Leeds manager Dave O'Leary was subsequently reported to have said that the clash had ruled the player out of the Ireland game. Such a loss would have been a severe blow to the Ireland manager, who is already without three experienced international defenders in Kenny Cunningham, Gary Breen and Steve Carr.

With Steve Staunton effectively committed to partnering Richard Dunne in central defence, it would also have left him stretched on the left side with the naturally right-sided defender, Gary Kelly, the most obvious replacement. That, in turn, would have opened up an opportunity for Steve Finnan to start at right back on Saturday.

But McCarthy maintained last night that the injury is less serious than that. "If they'd said that, then maybe that's what they thought at the time, but I spoke to the club physio a long time after the game and he seemed a lot more positive.

"He told me that Ian would be receiving a good bit of treatment over the next couple of days, but the arrangement at the end was that he would travel over on Wednesday to join up with the rest of the squad. After that, I don't expect that it will be a problem," said McCarthy.

The Harte incident marks the second time in three days that McCarthy had been obliged to scotch alarmist media reports involving regular first-team players for Ireland.

On Friday, several newspapers reported Roy Keane would be out for up to three weeks after he had apparently picked up an ankle injury. But the reports were later dismissed and the midfielder came through Manchester United's game at Villa Park yesterday without any obvious problems.

As of last night, McCarthy said there had been no reports of any of his players suffering knocks over the course of the weekend and the manager even received something of a boost yesterday when Shay Given and Niall Quinn both played all 90 minutes of the game between Newcastle United and Sunderland.

The Dutch, meanwhile, are due to name their squad this afternoon, by which time Louis van Gaal's towering central defender Jaap Stam is scheduled to have been unveiled as a Lazio player.