So far, so good as plans are drawn

If the Russians are aware that their football team has historically enjoyed a reputation for being almost unbeatable at home and travelling about as impressively as one of the country's Soviet-era cars it doesn't appear to worry them.

Confronted with high levels of scepticism from the media pack at the Ireland team hotel yesterday, an FAI official had to check more than once that this weekend's visitors will only be travelling on Friday for the game. Perhaps Saturday morning would have done them but there wasn't a flight that would get to Dublin in time for the kick-off.

This, one might safely suggest, would not be the Brian Kerr way, but in the circumstances the Irish boss is unlikely to be complaining. His own preparations were shaping up rather well in north Dublin yesterday where the bulk of his squad trained together for the first time since stepping off a variety of flights from Britain.

Lee Carsley proved that he has recovered from a knee injury while playing 60 minutes of a reserve game for Everton last night, Colin Healy continued to receive treatment for a slight thigh strain picked up at the weekend and Kevin Kilbane's arrival was delayed by his transfer to Goodison Park while a handful of players opted for a session in the gym rather than on the training pitch because of a collection of minor knocks but all the indications are that Kerr will have a full panel available to him at kick-off time on Saturday.

Between now and then, he said yesterday, there are "a few close calls to be made" although there is little indication as to which he considers to be the closest. With Damien Duff likely to start up front there are three contenders for the role of striking partner while Steven Reid and Steve Finnan would appear to lead the race for the right midfield slot, Healy is clearly pushing Mark Kinsella in the centre.

The Corkman has performed strongly at this level when handed the opportunity and, after a couple of weeks at Sunderland, there is a sense that his long promising career is about to regain a good deal of its lost momentum.

"There are no hard feelings about Celtic," he said yesterday when asked about what most would view as a long overdue move out of Glasgow, "but obviously after a while I knew I had to get away.

"I wouldn't like to think that my time up there was completely wasted," he added, "but I played very little football. I spent most of the time sitting in stands and that became even harder when I'd come here for an Ireland game and be involved and then go back there to sit in the stands again."

Healy is one of those players that Kerr appears to have taken to at first sight and the Dubliner remains enthusiastic about a player who, he recalls, made a name for himself from his days in the junior international ranks.

"I always felt from the first time I saw him in the interprovincials at the AUL in '98 that he was a player that offered something a little bit different - to tackle, get on the ball and then use it well. He also has a knack for getting the ball into the box, beating a player and scoring goals; he did it for me a few of times I remember but we haven't seen him do it much during the last couple of years because of his time at Celtic."

Healy has yet to start a game at Sunderland where the team finally managed to turn the corner just as the Irishman arrived in town. But the 23-year-old has no complaints about waiting his turn while Mick McCarthy sticks with a winning team and, after a couple of impressive run outs from the bench, he looks both confident and relaxed as he talks about his future at the Stadium of Light.

His habit for getting forward and record of grabbing goals make him a tempting option ahead of a game that Ireland's only really established goalscorer at this level, Robbie Keane, will have to watch from the sidelines. Kerr, though, insists that the team has already shown itself capable of finding the net without its most established striker and expresses confidence that that should not be a particular problem this weekend.

"Getting a goal or two shouldn't be a problem," he remarks. "Apart from the Albania game we've scored in every one and even going back to the Moscow and Switzerland games where we lost, we still had enough to score against them."

Last year's game in Moscow, of course, will hardly be remembered by the Irish players as the night they put two past the Russians around at their place. "Don't worry," says Kerr, "I'll be reminding them of precisely what happened and I would hope that it will be a factor for them.

"We won't be fooling ourselves either, though. They deserve our respect. And if they were good enough to score four against us there then we'll have to be very good here if we're going to beat them."