Republic to face J-League side

The FAI has confirmed that the Republic of Ireland's final game in the run-up to the World Cup will be a friendly against J-League side Hiroshima on Saturday, May 25th.

The association's general secretary Brendan Menton is currently in Tokyo making arrangements for the team's stay in Japan. He said yesterday that the offer of a game was accepted, and the club will use the occasion to open their new 15,000-seater stadium.

The venue is a two-hour journey from the Irish squad's pre-tournament base of Izumo.

Details of the team's stay in Izumo, which is in Japan's south west, have now been wrapped up. "It's a beautiful place and the facilities are excellent, everything we need is right there," says Menton.

"They made contact with us the best part of a year ago and Mick (McCarthy) was very impressed with what he saw there. We'll stay there until just before the tournament starts and then fly up to Niigata (the venue for the first game) at around four in the afternoon, the day before we play Cameroon."

Menton hopes to have sorted out the rest of the team's plans before returning to Ireland late this week and he is still negotiating with at least two other associations, one said to be the Japanese, about filling the gap left by the collapse of plans to bring Argentina to Dublin in April. The South Americans may now take on Scotland.

The Republic face Nigeria in Dublin on May 17th, just 24 hours before flying to the Far East.