McCarthy tries to quell expectations

Back at the Irish squad's Dublin base yesterday, the surroundings for Mick McCarthy's latest bout of Meet the Press were familiar, but the territory decidedly foreign.

Long used to talking up his side's chances in an attempt to counter what he sees as relentless media "negativity", the Ireland coach found himself in the unusual situation of attempting to dampen down expectations for tomorrow night's clash with Estonia at Lansdowne Road.

Immediately after Saturday evening's draw with Portugal in Lisbon, McCarthy and a number of his senior players started the process. Niall Quinn and Roy Keane were, as the British Labour Party would put it, "on message" regarding tomorrow's task. They were around for McCarthy's first World Cup campaign in charge, when spectacularly frustrating outings in Lansdowne Road against Iceland and Lithuania almost cost the Republic even a place in the playoffs. Given the home form over the past couple of years, there's no reason to expect a repeat of those disappointments, but with the memory of Portugal coach Antonio Oliveira's confident predictions of victory prior to Saturday's draw obviously fresh, McCarthy was offering no hostages to fate.

"The fact is that if we get a horrible, scrappy 1-0 win, then I'd settle for that," he said. "I'm not saying that that's what we'll go out there looking for, but I'd settle for it because it would give us the three points and that's what we need.

"This group could well be decided by the results of the likes of Holland, Portugal and ourselves against the other countries. The Dutch and Portuguese are well capable of coming here and beating us, or they might get a draw, and we'll probably have to play every bit as well against them next time to make sure that the results we've got so far don't end up counting for nothing.

"In the meantime, it's vital that we win games like this one on Wednesday. We have to beat sides like Estonia home and away, because I'm fairly sure that the others will. I mean, you only have to look at the Dutch winning 4-0 in Cyprus over the weekend. That was an outstanding victory and I'm sure they'll follow it up by beating them at home, just as I'd be pretty confident that Portugal will beat Estonia in Lisbon after beating them 3-1 in Tallinn last month."

Final preparations for tomorrow's game were, as of yesterday lunchtime, disrupted by the fact that a video of Estonia in action, along with a good deal of McCarthy's other possessions, failed to arrive from Lisbon on Sunday afternoon. "Even if it doesn't between now and then, we'll know about them because both Ian (Evans) and myself got off our arses and went over to see them."

McCarthy declined to name his team until at least this morning, after the team's training session at Lansdowne Road, but he made no secret that he will, after playing Robbie Keane slightly deeper than Quinn in Lisbon, revert to a conventional 4-4-2. The striking partners are hoping that they will be able to camp in the visiting side's box, with everybody else, especially the wing men, expected to service them.

The team will almost certainly be the same as started in Lisbon. Having made it clear there that there was no way he could drop anybody involved in the Amsterdam match, McCarthy can hardly switch things after another outstanding result in Lisbon.

Injury is unlikely to deprive him of anyone's services. While neither Richard Dunne nor Matt Holland trained yesterday as a result of minor knocks, both are expected to be fit.

Holland's goal and overall performance in the Stadium of Light might have persuaded his manager to tinker a little with his selection, but the Ipswich midfielder's role is a central one and, as the 26-year-old admitted yesterday, he is not going to displace either Keane or Mark Kinsella.

McCarthy's main concern is that Estonia might grab an early goal and dig in. "That's a possibility you have to be conscious of with everybody you play," he said. "When we went to Holland I was concerned that the Dutch might have scored early, or, at the weekend, that the Portuguese might have."

McCarthy, though, retains considerable faith in his side when it's at its strongest. Clearly determined to make the point, he decided to remind us of his record in competitive games, remarking that they are figures that he is happy to stand over. Bizarrely, though, he got the figures wrong, claiming 11 wins, four draws and just three defeats in 18 group games, when the respective figures are, in fact, 10, four and four.

It is more pertinent to tomorrow evening's game that the Republic won every home match during the Euro 2000 campaign - and won all bar the Macedonian game very well indeed. Failure to continue the run tomorrow evening would squander the great work of the past five weeks.