Connolly single-minded and capable

If his time in Holland has taught him anything it's not to take anything for granted. So, as David Connolly sat and chatted at the team hotel yesterday, he was careful to avoid the presumption that Mick McCarthy will include him in the Irish team when it is named this afternoon.

The Ireland boss wasn't drawn on the matter himself, remarking only that he had a good idea of what Connolly could do and hinting he might be at least as interested in seeing how his other options might pan out.

Still, he makes no secret of the credit he feels the 23-year-old striker deserves for keeping his head down during a couple of difficult seasons in Dutch football. Not many in his position, he points out, would have concentrated so singlemindedly on proving to a big club they had made a mistake by discarding him, fewer still would have succeeded in making their point so forcefully.

Connolly did it by scoring 42 times in 48 games, "I didn't take the penalties," he adds quickly, "and there were about 10 of them," during his time on loan at second division club Excelsior. During that time the former Watford striker convinced the majority of neutral observers he was worth another run in the top flight and at the start of the season Herenveen offered him the chance to play Champions League football.

Signing would almost certainly have meant a big cut in pay but Connolly insists now that it was Feyenoord's refusal to let him go to a rival that effectively made his decision for him. It was the first compliment the club had paid him in quite a while and the first hint he might have a future back there.

Finally, he was recalled before the league's winter break and played two games, scoring one goal, before the enforced rest. Since then he has only started once, the first game back but he has been consistently involved and is, at least, getting a fair chance in a squad that includes other quality strikers such as Danish international Jon Dahl Tomasson, Dutchman Peter van Vossen and the Russian Igor Korneev.

"I'm kind of happyish with that, to be honest," he remarks, happy it seems, to be finally making some sort of an impact he left England to play for.

How much longer he will be there is already in question, however, for having spent 18 months away from the Rotterdam club, his contract has only six months remaining and so tentative talks about what will happen after the summer have already started.

"I talked to them only yesterday about it but there's a long was to go, they have to consider their options and I have to consider mine," he says while making it clear he doesn't rule out the possibility of staying on in Holland.

The banter between the other Irish players does, he admits, leave him feeling slightly out of it because so much of the talk revolves around the English league and their games against each other. "But I enjoy living in Holland, to be honest. It's a nice place, I've learned the language and Feyenoord is a very big club, the game the other day (against PSV) was a sell-out and the place holds 50,000 so it's still very much an option."

In the meantime the target is to achieve regular first team football both at club and international levels. The latter, he realises, is going to be a tall order given he feels that the traditional Irish system of playing with a big target man is the right one for the team and its employment means that he is left to battle it out with Robbie Keane for a place in McCarthy's starting line-up.

Tomorrow he may get a chance to show how an alternative approach might work out although he is realistic enough to accept that if he does, luck will have a significant part to play in the way things work out. "The thing is that you can have all the things you need in your locker and you just need the key to open it. All I know is that I'm determined to be more than a squad player and you never know what's going to happen that will give you an opportunity to play."