Onwards with the evolution

Emmet Malone looks to the future and sees reasons to be cheerful as Mick McCarthy's options expand.

After he started the process six years ago of rebuilding a Jack Charlton-designed side that age had caught up on, Mick McCarthy will begin the next phase of its evolution in just two months when he takes a slightly new-look team to Helsinki for a final piece of preparation prior to the start of the Euro 2004 qualifying campaign.

With Niall Quinn, Steve Staunton and Alan Kelly having said their farewells this week, and Roy Keane and Phil Babb looking increasingly unlikely to return from exile for the foreseeable future, almost all the links with the past will be broken by the time he names his squad for that trip.

For all his talk of the slate being wiped clean ahead of September's trip to Moscow, McCarthy's position has never been stronger. The 43-year-old has come out of this World Cup with a considerably enhanced reputation, at home and abroad.

There have been some questionable decisions during the past few weeks - the raising of the Iran game with Keane at a meeting that should only have dealt with more immediate issues and his persistent, if characteristic, reluctance to drop players whose form had clearly abandoned them - stand out.

But in both cases, his broader handling of the issues involved - the Roy Keane affair and the tactical side of running the team - has been good enough to suggest he has come a long way since taking on a job that very few others in the business were willing to risk at the start of 1996.

There are further tests ahead, however, some of which have been clearly flagged by Ireland's four games at this tournament. Primarily, the question of whether Damien Duff and Robbie Keane are really Ireland's best option up front needs to be reassessed before the European Championship campaign gets under way. McCarthy came close to admitting yesterday that Duff is more effective out on the wings, a fact underlined by his performances here in Japan and Korea, but went on to make the point that, in the wider context of the squad's strengths and weaknesses, it makes more sense to persist with playing the 23-year-old up front.

The extent to which Duff caused mayhem in the Spanish defence on Sunday night suggests otherwise, however, while the impact made by Niall Quinn on each of the three occasions he came on provided strong evidence that this team still poses a much greater attacking threat when it possesses some aerial threat around the box. At the very least, there is a need to be able to make the tactical switch so successfully employed by McCarthy in three of the four games played during the past couple of weeks.

The Ireland manager previously said he believes Clinton Morrison is capable of providing that sort of outlet within the box. Whether he can or not, the Crystal Palace striker may yet prove a key player in the development of the Irish front line. But Gary Doherty, who McCarthy has repeatedly said he views primarily as a defender, looks a far more likely candidate for the role.

Steven Reid's involvement at this World Cup may have been limited, but he nevertheless did a good deal to substantiate the belief that he is a midfielder of enormous potential. Many believe the same of Colin Healy, although the young Corkman's prospects of becoming a regular member of the Ireland squad will surely suffer if he cannot command a regular first-team place at club level.

Steve Carr's rehabilitation following his long-term knee injury will, we hope, be completed by the time the team's competitive programme gets under way, but the Spurs right back faces a fierce battle to regain the place lost first to Gary Kelly and, more recently, to Steve Finnan. What his return will do, however, is broaden McCarthy's options at left back, where the lack of a credible alternative to Ian Harte - particularly now that Staunton has exited - has clearly not been healthy.

Staunton's departure, of course, is of more direct relevance to the team's central defence, but the squad has grown stronger in that department over the past couple of years, with Andy O'Brien's form at Newcastle and the continued promise shown by John O'Shea at Manchester United the most promising signs for the future. More immediately, though, Gary Breen's remarkable form during the past couple of weeks looks to have ensured that it is around him that the defence will now be built.

Alongside Breen will be the majority of the players who have featured over the past couple of weeks, with the likes of Shay Given, Finnan and Keane having further grown in stature since the squad's arrival in Japan almost a month ago. Most impressive, however, were Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella, both of whom exceeded what might have been reasonably expected of them when presented with the challenge of filling the void left by Roy Keane.

Overall, the future of the team looks bright, with several factors suggesting that they are capable of achieving the back-to-back qualifications McCarthy feels they must manage if they are to prove to outsiders that the past few weeks have not been something of a fluke.

Certainly, most of the individuals appear to have their best years in front of them, with the average age of the team that started on Sunday, excluding Staunton, coming in at under 26. Their main qualification rivals, Russia, have looked vastly inferior to them at these finals. And in McCarthy they have a manager to whom they seem to respond strongly as a group.

In Moscow we will see how well they start to build on what has been achieved in their first major outing together, but they can be sure that when they arrive there the weight of expectations resting on their shoulders will be a good deal heavier than when most of the same players headed for Amsterdam just short of two years ago.

Next on the list: Republic's fixtures

Wed, Aug 21st: Finland v Ireland Friendly

Sat, Sep 7th: Russia v Ireland Euro 2004 qualifier

Wed, Oct 16th: Ireland v Switzerland Euro 2004 qualifier

Wed, Nov 20th: Greece v Ireland Friendly

2003

Sat, Mar 29th: Georgia v Ireland Euro 2004 qualifier

Wed, Apr 2nd: Albania v Ireland Euro 2004 qualifier

Sat, Jun 7th: Ireland v Albania Euro 2004 qualifier

Wed Jun 11th: Ireland v Georgia Euro 2004 qualifier

Sat, Sep 6th: Ireland v Russia Euro 2004 qualifier

Sat, Oct 11th: Switzerland v Ireland Euro 2004 qualifier