Ireland to face South Africa in Thomond Park

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND FRIENDLY FIXTURE: GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI is unlikely to give the event too much thought until the flight home from Cyprus a couple of days earlier, but the FAI yesterday filled the last remaining vacant date in his Republic of Ireland team's schedule for 2009 by pencilling in a friendly game against South Africa to be played at Thomond Park on Tuesday, September 8th.

The game will take place three days after the World Cup qualifier in Nicosia and will give the players a run-out together ahead of the potentially critical games against Italy and Montenegro at Croke Park the following month.

In the unlikely event that the game in Nicosia goes anything like the 5-2 hammering the Republic suffered under Steve Staunton in October 2006, of course, the friendly might also provide the opportunity for some radical restructuring of the game plan that has thus far served the team fairly well under the Italian.

It will, as it happens, be only the second time the two countries have met with the Irish beating the “Bafana Bafana” 2-1 in a New Jersey friendly back in 2000. While the South Africans are traditionally strong, it is unclear what the quality of the opposition will be this time around.

Current coach, Brazil’s Joel Santana, has a decent but hardly outstanding group to choose from with, in addition to a sizeable locally-based contingent, players based in the likes of Serbia, Spain, Sweden and Russia having featured in recent games.

There is also a handful of Premier League players with both Benni McCarthy and Aaron Mokona based at Blackburn Rovers while Steven Pienaar is with Everton.

Results over the last couple of years have generally been disappointing, though, for a nation that had made quite an impact on the international stage after coming in from the international wilderness in the post-apartheid era.

The country is the first World Cup host nation to play in the qualifying rounds for the competition as a result of the preliminary rounds also serving to provide finalists for the next African Cup of Nations (CAF) which is to be held in Angola early next year.

The South Africans missed out on the second group of the CAF qualifiers having finished second to Nigeria in their group with just seven points from six games.

Eight of the second-placed teams made the cut but the South Africans were not one of them and so, unusually in light of their record, they will not be at the next African finals, a fact that caused some concern about their ability to compete effectively on home turf at the World Cup finals.

There has been some relief for Santana, who took over from Carlos Alberto Parreira in April of last year, in recent months as his team secured respectable wins over Cameroon and Zambia.

They lost their last game against Chile and there will be pressure for the team to at least show signs of improvement against Norway and Portugal at the end of this month.

Their visit to Limerick, a month after Australia are due to take part in the first senior international ever staged in the city, means that the Irish senior team will play at least 10 games this year.

In addition to the 2-1 win over Georgia last month there are six remaining group games, three of them at home, starting with Bulgaria next Saturday week, and a third friendly against Nigeria at Craven Cottage in London on May 29th.

In the event that Trapattoni’s team finishes second in their group they will almost certainly face into two play-off games in mid-November. However, if they qualify automatically for the finals, or end up being the ninth best runners-up, or they finish third or lower in Group Eight, they will have additional free dates to play with, something the FAI are likely to be keen to exploit given their need to keep generating money in the current climate.

Tickets for the South Africa game will go on sale closer to the event through both the association and the stadium websites with prices starting at €25 for adults, well below the rates normally charged for Dublin games.

Tickets for the qualifying match against Bulgaria, meanwhile, are still on sale from Ticketmaster.ie or the Carroll’s Gift Store beside O’Connell Bridge in central Dublin.

The Irish women’s team have been handed a tough draw for the preliminary stage of the 2011 World Cup with old rivals Russia and Switzerland again standing between Noel King’s side and a place in the knockout stages.

The three teams came up against each other in the qualifiers for the 2007 event although all were rather overshadowed on that occasions as the eventual world champions, Germany, coasted to qualification while the Irish finished fourth in the group.

This time the three are joined by Israel and Kazakhstan with the group winners progressing to play-offs that will produce qualifiers for the tournament, which is to be held in Germany

The four losing teams at that stage will compete for one spot in a further play-off against a South American team for another spot in the finals.

Ireland's schedule

March 28th:Bulgaria (home) – World Cup Qualifier.

April 1st:Italy (away) – WCQ.

May 29th: Nigeria (London) – friendly.

June 6th: Bulgaria (away) – WCQ.

August 12th: Australia (home) – friendly.

September 5th: Cyprus (away) – WCQ.

September 8th: South Africa (home) – friendly.

October 10th: Italy (home) – WCQ.

October 14th:Montenegro (home) – WCQ.