MICK McCARTHY will have words of reassurance for some of his former teammates when he talks with senior members of the Republic of Ireland squad this week. The new manager plans to begin his reign cautiously and, to a large extent, without controversy.

McCarthy is not ready to dispense with proven international players, purely on the grounds of age. I'll talk with people individually over the next few days and assure them that I've not taken the job with preconceived notions about established players," he said yesterday.

"My task will be to select the best available team on the day and I believe it would be unwise to make blanket judgments at this stage which could, conceivably, make the job harder in the future.

"I intend to ease my way into it, see what I've got and take it from there. As of now, it looks as if I'll have five or six games to sort things out before we start our World Cup programme in Liechtenstein in August. By that stage, I should have a clearer idea of what action, if any, needs to be taken."

Among those who will welcome those sentiments is Paul McGrath, Ireland's most capped player, who had just slipped past his 36th birthday when Jack Charlton's reign ended in the 2-0 defeat by Holland at Anfield in December.

McGrath, whose contract with Aston Villa is up for renewal at the end of the season, has occasionally struggled in the last 12 months to get the full 90 minutes in international competition. Yet, paradoxically, he was Ireland's most effective defender in that period, imposing himself on a whole range of quality opponents.

The expectation was that the central defend would struggle to survive the change from, but the sound bytes emanating from London suggest that he will, at least, be given the opportunity of proving that judgment wrong.

That is down on the one hand, to the fact that McCarthy has just two years to prove himself in his new posting. That time scale does not permit him to indulge his sense of enterprise too often.

The other factor is that, unlike his predecessor who had a surfeit of talent in the central defensive positions for so long, McCarthy doesn't have too many attractive options for the marker position.

Alan Kernaghan, whose future at Manchester City looks increasingly uncertain, has still to deliver on the promise he showed during his early days with Middlesbrough and Ireland. That is down, in part, to the fact that he was never given the opportunity of putting a number of games back to back for the national team. As a consequence, he has only rarely looked wholly composed.

There was a time when Charlton was grooming Liam Daish as the heir apparent to the job, but in spite of his level of performance with Birmingham City and his promotion to the captaincy of the club, he has never quite recaptured the momentum of the early part of his career.

Two other contenders, John Hughes (Celtic) and John Pemberton (Leeds United), have surfaced this season without as yet producing convincing claims for international status. Hughes, a member of a celebrated Glasgow foot balling family, was watched and passed over by Charlton in October.

Pemberton, who attracted the attention of the Welsh manager Bobby Gould before his Irish qualifications were established, is currently recovering from a serious leg injury sustained against Aston Villa, a week last Saturday.

It's not an encouraging scenario for McCarthy, but it gives McGrath first capped against Italy in 1985, realistic hope of starting another international season in August. By that stage, presumably, the manager will have looked at the various permutations available to him.

The same opportunity is likely to be afforded to John Aldridge, a year older than McGrath, but still by some way the most prolific goal scorer available to the Ireland manager. Needing just one more goal to equal Frank Stapleton's record of 20, Aldridge is unlikely to see out the full 1998. World Cup campaign, but he will be consoled by the fact that his departure from the international scene is not regarded as automatic by his old comrade in arms.

Others, like Ray Houghton, Tony Cascarino and, to a lesser extent, Andy Townsend, will be awaiting McCarthy's call with some agitation, but no less than McGrath and Aldridge, they are likely to discover that the new man is not in the mood for radical change.