McCarthy happy as game is switched

MICK McCARTHY expressed his approval yesterday after the FAI had successfully lobbied to have the World Cup game against Liechtenstein, brought forward to May.

The fixture, originally scheduled for Lansdowne Road on June 7th, will now be played at the same venue on May 21st, thereby obviating some difficult decisions for the Ireland manager.

"As things originally stood, there was a gap of three weeks between the end of the season in England and the match with Liechtenstein - and it worried me no end," said McCarthy.

"What do you do in this circumstances. Do you allow players to go home when they've finished with their clubs and come and join us in Dublin, a week or so before the international game.

"Alternatively, you could insist on them staying in training for the full three weeks but I don't imagine they would have been too pleased with that prospect.

"All in all, it was a good day's work to get the game switched. Now all we have to do is go and win it."

Bernard O'Byrne, the FAT's chief executive, noted the co operation of both FIFA and the Liechtenstein Federation.

After a warm up game against Wales at Cardiff on February 11th Ireland are due to resume their World Cup programme in Macedonia on April 2nd. That threatens to be an important date in the qualifying campaign and another fixture which fits that category is the April 30th meeting with Romania at Bucharest.

McCarthy is looking for a minimum return of four points from these two games to get his title challenge back on track before the visit of Liechtenstein in the third week in May.

The other big, end of season attraction at Lansdowne Road is Packie Bonner's testimonial game on May 18th when an Ireland selection is due to meet Celtic. This is conditional, however, on the Parkhead club not being involved in the Scottish Cup final, to be played just six days later.

Tommy Burns, the Celtic manager, would baulk at the prospect of putting his players at risk in a friendly game so close to the cup final and it remains to be seen how McCarthy would view the proposition, just 72 hours before the meeting with Liechtenstein.