Having left some fairly irate club managers behind in England and overcome some transportation and accommodation problems en route to Moldova, one of the strongest under age teams ever produced by this country takes the field for the first time in an under18 UEFA qualifying tournament group this afternoon.
Brian Kerr's side includes a number of up and coming stars with the likes of Blackburn's Damien Duff, Richard Dunne of Everton and Wolves's Robbie Keane all expected to play a central part in this week's two games. The Irish play Azerbaijan today, and with their opponents having lost 1-0 to the hosts on Monday anything better than that scoreline this afternoon will leave Kerr's side needing only a draw from Friday's concluding game against Moldova to advance to the playoffs for a place in next summer's championship finals.
The 18-strong squad came through a training session without any problems and Ryan Casey, a striker with Swansea City, is reckoned to have recovered sufficiently from flu to be in contention for a starting spot.
The Irish manager's decision to bring Keane on the trip has annoyed Wolves manager Mark McGhee who complained yesterday that he would be without one of his most outstanding players of the early season period for two matches this week.
"It's a scandal that Robbie can be taken away to an obscure tournament like this," said McGhee, who will be without Keane for games against Tranmere and Stockport in a week when there is continued speculation about his position at Molineux.
"It's wrong for the player and it's wrong for us. He was reluctant to go but he had no choice. If he had refused, he couldn't have played for us. I think the Irish are being quite selfish."
At home, meanwhile, Sligo Rovers have been draw to play Home Farm/Everton in the semi-finals of the League Cup with Dundalk taking on Shelbourne who beat Limerick 2-1 at Tolka Park last night. Dermot Kealy's current club and the one he won the League title with three years ago will play at home first. Dundalk will play their match at Oriel Park on Tuesday, November 11th, with the game at Whitehall taking place 24 hours later.
The return legs were provisionally pencilled in for December the 2nd second and 3rd third of December.
