Phelan is the latest to withdraw

Terry Phelan is out of contention for a place in the Republic of Ireland team to meet Belgium in tomorrow's World Cup play-off in Brussels after breaking down in training, shortly after the squad arrived in the city yesterday.

Phelan, one of the options being considered by Mick McCarthy following the loss of Denis Irwin, pulled up abruptly midway through a training session with a recurrence of a calf muscle injury, sustained initially in training in Dublin on Tuesday.

"I had hoped that my leg would be fine but I soon discovered that I was in trouble," he said. "I couldn't twist or turn and in that situation, there was no point in continuing. Obviously, I'm very disappointed for it's the biggest international game we've played in a long time and like everybody else, I was hoping to be involved."

With Curtis Fleming also missing, the odds will shorten that Steve Staunton will return to his old position at left back, leaving McCarthy with a problem to solve on the left side of midfield.

Significantly, both Ray Houghton and David Kelly trained without any apparent distress yesterday but Alan Kelly did not take part because of a hamstring problem.

Kelly's injury is a cause of some concern and last night the Irish management team took the precaution of putting the Bolton goalkeeper, Keith Branagan, on standby. Branagan's only senior international was against Wales at Cardiff last February.

That represented the hard news on a day when the build-up to the big game, was accelerated significantly in the Irish camp. Eight years and 69 largely successful appearances in the team, ought to have prepared Andy Townsend for almost any contingency in international football. Yet, no less than the other members of the squad McCarthy has assembled in Brussels, he admits to a quickening of the pulse as he makes ready for tomorrow's make-or-break test.

"You play dozens and dozens of games in a season but every now and then, there is a special one - a match which excites the senior players as much as those who have only just come into the squad.

"This one fits that category. There is a place for us in the World Cup finals next summer if we win it. And it also offers us the chance of proving that Ireland are a better team than they looked in the first game at Lansdowne Road. Nobody was overjoyed with our performance that night, certainly not the players. Now we have an opportunity of putting things right and we've never been more determined to take it."

Townsend's show of defiance came on the day that the advance party of some 9,000 Irish supporters expected at the game, arrived in Brussels. They set down in a city which has not, as yet, been hit with an obvious excess of football mania.

It is the biggest game to be played so far in the renovated King Baudouin stadium, formerly known as the Heysel, and Irish residents here can testify to the fact that the Belgian football authorities are acting on their pledge, to exclude Irish fans from that section of the ground reserved for supporters of the home team.

This, in turn has led to protests from the ex-patriots that they are being victimised on two counts, first by the FAI's insistence in selling only to regular patrons at games at Lansdowne Road and, secondly, by the Belgians' refusal to countenance any ticket enquiries from those they perceive as Irish. The extraordinary interest by the Irish public, is all the more remarkable when set against the background of the disappointing performance in the first game.

Mick McCarthy would question the use of the word, inquest to describe the post match discussion which is still on going after the 1-1 draw which may have surprised the Belgians as much as it disappointed the home team.

Yet, undeniably, the psychological advantage and much else which goes into the making of favourites, is now with Belgium. It's a situation which is not exactly unacceptable to McCarthy, and yet he is still as dismissive as ever of theories that his team was fortunate to escape without a defeat in the Dublin game.

For the second consecutive day, he took time out to dispute the belief that the Belgians made the bulk of the scoring chances in Dublin and that survival was down in the end to the athleticism of Shay Given in goal.

"I came away from the game thinking that Belgium had given us a hard time up front but looking at the video, I was pleasantly surprised to discover how seldom they got us into trouble at the back.

"It's true that Shay pulled off a couple of great saves but otherwise, they didn't cause us too much bother, even in that period when they came back at us after Denis Irwin's goal.

"Afterwards I was amazed at some of the comments made about the quality of our defence and, in particular the criticism of Kenny Cunningham and Ian Harte at centre back. That certainly, wasn't how I saw the game. I had no complaints about either of them in what was a very tense situation for everybody."

Commenting on the growing pressures of his job, he said: "Of course, there is pressure but it's the kind of pressure every manager wants. It's a great game to be involved in - it's something we've been working towards for much of the last two years".

On the likelihood of the Belgians hitting his team with an early blitz, he said: "With the score tied at 1-1, it's not a match in which they're likely to be taking risks from the first minute. And I don't think they will. But even if they score early, it won't change things greatly. We go into the game knowing that we have to score to stay alive - it's as stark and as simple as that".